BC Mayor Censured, Stripped of Budget Over Book on Residential Schools

Flowers and cards are left at a monument outside the former Kamloops Indian Residential School in honour of 215 children whose potential graves were discovered near the facility, in Kamloops, B.C., on May 31, 2021. The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck

A mayor in British Columbia has had his travel budget removed and been banned from committees after allegedly distributing a book on residential schools that is critical of media response to alleged unmarked graves linked to residential schools in Kamloops and elsewhere.

Quesnel Mayor Ron Paull was accused of attempting to hand out copies of the book “Grave Error: How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth about Residential Schools)” by Thomas Flanagan and C.P. Champion. The book, which contains a series of essays, examines the media’s response to the May 2021 announcement of the alleged grave site discovery.