Court tosses defamation suit by mayor's wife against Union of BC Indian Chiefs

The Survivors flag flies on Parliament hill ahead of ceremonies to mark National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, Monday, Sept. 30, 2024 in Ottawa. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

The B.C. Supreme Court has dismissed a defamation lawsuit launched by the wife of the mayor of Quesnel, B.C., against the Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs, after it denounced her for distributing a book questioning “atrocities” in residential schools.

Pat Morton sued the union after it wrote to Quesnel’s city council in April 2024, objecting to an invitation to Frances Widdowson to address a council meeting about the book that she contributed to.

The letter said Morton, who is married to Mayor Ron Paull, bought cases of the book and handed them out to clients at her son’s tax office where she worked, “in blatant disregard” for the impact on residential school survivors.

The union called the book “extremely dangerous,” saying it disregarded residential school experiences that included sexual abuse, medical experimentation, and death, with some students “discarded in unmarked graves.”

The judge found the alleged defamatory statements were fair comment on a matter of public interest and an expression deserving of a “high level of protection,” and that Morton suffered negligible, if any, harm from the letter.

The court dismissed the lawsuit under B.C.’s Protection of Public Participation Act, legislation aimed at lawsuits that “disproportionately suppress free expression on matters of public interest.”

“To be clear, this application is not about Ms. Morton’s right to distribute the book, nor is it about her right to express her views about the book’s content. Neither is at issue,” Justice Jasmin Ahmad wrote.

“At its core, this application is about whether the public interest in protecting the (Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs’) right to publicly express its criticism of Ms. Morton for her distribution of the book outweighs any harm Ms. Morton may have incurred as a result of the letter to Quesnel’s mayor and council.”

The Union of B.C. Indian Chiefs said Monday that the ruling recognized that the statements at issue were “made in the public interest and grounded in its long-standing mandate to support survivors and challenge residential school denialism.”

“This decision reinforces that standing up for survivors and speaking the truth about residential schools is not only necessary, it is protected,” said its president Grand Chief Stewart Phillip in a statement.

Phillip said the union had a responsibility to survivors to “challenge misinformation that causes harm.”

“We will continue to do so without hesitation.”

The statement said advocacy around the issue was spurred by concerns among member nations that the book undermined the “documented experiences of residential school survivors.”

Morton said Monday in an interview from Quesnel that she plans to appeal the ruling, and that she proceeded with the lawsuit without a lawyer representing her because “nobody wanted to handle it.”

“I phoned a lot of lawyers and they weren’t interested in handling it or it was going to cost way too much for me for them to represent me,” she said.

Widdowson, whose was a contributor to the book called “Grave Error: How The Media Misled Us (and the Truth about Residential Schools),” has been visiting university campuses to promote her views. and in January she was picked up and carried away horizontally by three RCMP officers at the University of British Columbia.

She was among a group of people whom RCMP had asked to leave for their own safety as counter protesters met them on campus.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 4, 2026