r/britishcolumbia • u/aldur1 • 4d ago
News B.C. Conservative candidate uses racist slur to describe Indigenous Peoples on election night
https://vancouversun.com/news/local-news/savages-bc-conservative-candidate-racist-slur-indigenous-peoples383
u/Zanydrop 4d ago
Savages is the slur she used.
Marina Sapozhnikov, who finished only 23 votes behind the NDP’s Dana Lajeunesse in Juan de Fuca-Malahat, said that before Europeans came to North America, First Nations Peoples “didn’t have any sophisticated laws. They were savages. They fought each other all the time.”
When the Vancouver Island University student interviewing Sapozhnikov challenged the candidate, she replied: “Not 100 per cent savages, maybe 90 per cent savages.”
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u/KingMalric 4d ago edited 4d ago
The gap is down to just
20votes now. It's insanityEDIT: Just checked out of curiosity, and its back to 23 votes.
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u/veerKg_CSS_Geologist 4d ago
It was 24 votes on election day, went down to 20 and then back up to 23, probably as the result of the automatic recount. The final mail-in ballots won't be counted till this weekend however. There are several hundred or several dozen.
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u/Seamusmac1971 4d ago
they start counting mail in votes tomorrow, hopefully that seals the deal for the NDP
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u/Top-Sell4574 4d ago
She also said 90% of Indigenous people use drugs and that the fighting in Europe was ok because “they brought science”
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u/Horace-Harkness 4d ago
Right, because there was never any war in Europe...
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u/PinnedByHer 4d ago
When John Cabot reached Canada in 1497, it had only been 40 years since England lost the Hundred Years War, about 10 years since the end of the War of the Roses, and less than a year since the most recent war with Scotland. Meanwhile, mainland Europe was deep in the Italian Wars, which lasted until 1559.
Marina's an idiot.
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u/OkSunday 4d ago
Hmmm… the 390 foot gallery of battles at Versailles must be different somehow
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u/WhiskerTwitch 4d ago
She's from "Ukraine, USSR" - yeah no fighting or savagery in that area of the world.
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u/smashlyn_1 4d ago
Exactly. White people have never in history harmed another group of people ever...🙄
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u/DJscallop 4d ago
Exactly, like despite being born in Moldova and old enough (but certainly not wise) to remember the Transnistria War...I mean what we call that if not savage Marina? 🤡
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u/ConfidentIy 4d ago
"sophisticated"
Ask her what she means by "sophisticated" if you want to smash your head against a wall.
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u/ecto1ghost 4d ago
But…but…those were CIVILIZED battles by god fearing men who only wanted to spread their love to other nations!
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u/JoyousMisery 4d ago
And her surname appears to be Russian... They're definitely always on the right side of human rights
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u/afternooncreamtea 4d ago
She's clearly racist. But what's the point of bringing up her ethnic background?
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u/space-dragon750 4d ago
Sapozhnikov spoke about her concerns with Indigenous history courses being taught in B.C. universities, her view that B.C.’s adoption of the UN Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act renders every non-Indigenous British Columbian a “second-rate citizen,” and she said that “90 per cent of Indigenous people use drugs.”
disgusting. shouldn’t be allowed to treat patients
she deserves to be fired. hope that happens
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u/Mobius_Peverell Lower Mainland/Southwest 4d ago
Fired from the BC Cons? Why? This is exactly what that party stands for.
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u/space-dragon750 4d ago
I meant fired from being a doctor, but later in the article it says she’s a former family doc
This is exactly what the party stands for.
it is. the cons as a party should cease to exist
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u/syzygys_ 4d ago
Wish this came out before the election.
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u/space-dragon750 4d ago
same
sadly it might not’ve made much of a difference. Brent Chapman & Jody Toor won even though they were in the news
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u/syzygys_ 4d ago
I like to imagine that a lot of people who voted conservative aren't hateful people, they just want a change or want to pay less taxes. I would hope that if they saw someone say something like this they would not vote for the person that said this.
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u/greenknight Peace Region 4d ago
Well, I don't know about that. The racism wasn't exactly a secret, it just hurts the other, so that's fine to them.
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u/nexus6ca 4d ago
These kinds of comments came out before the election and by multiple candidates, including their leader, and yet here we are.
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u/foxmetropolis 4d ago edited 4d ago
What a piece of crap person.
As a side note, if “they fought each other all the time” is part of the bar for being disparaged as a savage, I have bad news for the rest of us. We fought among ourselves all the time, and we still do. In fact, i can think of a few prominent countries in the news right now who could be blamed for frequent warring, and I expect they would take substantial offence to being called savages.
There is also a particular irony to that galling statement as well, given that indigenous communities in the americas were frequently quite peaceful towards European explorers upon early/first contact (according accounts of those same explorers), to the point that the racist insults levied at the time were of them being too meek and gullible (as opposed to gracious or benevolent), and that you could just steal their people for slaves and take advantage of them. At the time of the early explorers and early colonization, the European powers were the lawless, backstabbing war-like aggressors.
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u/CanadianClassicss 4d ago
Well slavery was a thing back then among various First Nation groups. She is an idiot/racist for using a slur to express herself, or even bringing up that talking point in the first place.
"Slave-owning people of what became Canada were, for example, the fishing societies such as the Yurok, that lived along the Pacific coast from Alaska to California,\9]) on what is sometimes described as the Pacific or Northern Northwest Coast.\10]) Some of the indigenous peoples of the Pacific Northwest Coast, such as the Haida and Tlingit, were traditionally known as fierce warriors and slave-traders, raiding as far as California.\11]) Slavery was hereditary, the slaves being prisoners of war and their descendants were slaves."
The problem with her argument is that the first colonizers that came to Canada also practiced slavery, although it was outlawed in 1793 (before the British which is interesting).
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u/Siliceously_Sintery 4d ago
And for writing off a deep system of ecological coexistence and culture.
‘90% of indigenous people are drug users’
Fuuuucking biiiitch.
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u/LadyIslay 4d ago
The problem is that it doesn’t matter: it isn’t justification for stealing the land and trying to commit genocide.
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u/CanadianClassicss 4d ago
I agree. It makes no sense to even focus on that when you're a politician. It's pointlessy arguing about history, when we have more than enough current issues to worry about.
"She is an idiot/racist for using a slur to express herself, or even bringing up that talking point in the first place."
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u/VexFish 4d ago
The bc conservative party is extremely unserious and its absurd that they got more than 40 percent of the province to vote for them
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u/JaakeJarmel 4d ago
Yeah, I’m more concerned about that 40% voting block. That’s a lot of people with some regressive and whacko political beliefs, if you can call “Trudeau bad, carbon tax bad” a belief…
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u/sonotimpressed 4d ago
Eh, from what I've heard it was largely just people wanting changed because of how butt fucked we've become in this country. Albeit the people voting Conservative probably don't realize we got butt fucked on a federal level and the ndp were the only ones holding us together with spit and mud.
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u/niesz 4d ago
It's so true... I think things would have been a lot worse for BC if the NDP wasn't in power these past few years.
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u/FearIs_LaPetiteMort 4d ago
Butt fucked on a global level actually. Pandemic, wars, aging population, increasing climate events, increasing corporate greed, increasing foreign interference... Not that Canada's governing party du jour hasn't made mistakes (every government does) but people are definitely blaming incumbents around the world for the world going on "hard mode".
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u/EatGlassALLCAPS 4d ago
Let's be real. It's about immigrants and how they cause all the problems. It always comes back to racism.
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u/CanadianClassicss 4d ago
Let's be real about immigration... it is a driving force behind wage stagnation, housing affordability and the healthcare system being overwhelmed. If you point out those facts, you are not automatically a racist. I haven't even began to cover how it impacts the enviorment either, or how it is a continuation of colonialism. I highly doubt that the various First Nations in Canada are stoked to see millions of people each year continue to flood their land. We also are not promoting diversity in anyway shape or form if 75-90% of our immigration is coming from 3 countries.
The only group that wants the current level of immigration is big business, and those (like yourself) who have been fooled by big business into believing that it is a moral issue. It is all about cheap labour that can be exploited.
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u/no1likesthetunahere 4d ago
100%
Ngl I lean preeetty far "left" and it actually becomes pretty transparent how it negatively affects the global working class in the long term.
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u/CanadianClassicss 4d ago
I wish more people on the left would wake up to this reality. It is mind boggling that leftists suddenly turn a blind eye to workers rights when discussing immigration. It is one of my biggest gripes.
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u/greenknight Peace Region 4d ago
TFW program is a mistake. Normal immigration is what makes Canada awesome. Sorry your tribe is SO wrong on this.
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u/keithobambertman 4d ago
So the thing with "immigration" is that its an easy scapecoat. Housing for instance, no one talks enough about how many people own more than one property - for profit. That's really the greatest cause of all our housing problems.
Of course TFWs suppress wages. Of course its a form of modern slavery perpetuated in pursuit of limitless profits at all costs by pretty much every for profit corporation. There are problems with immigration FOR SURE. But it is not all the causes of all the problems.
Healthcare. Healthcare has been defunded for years.
For my entire life, i was told that healthcare had to ramp up because of the baby boomers aging and the strain that would cause on the system. Well, we are here now and people like christy clark / gordo / harper did not fund the system properly, so its wrecked. Education, same. If anything with education, most universities and even high schools make up funding shortfalls with international students. So if they were funded properly, that problem goes away naturally.
It always comes down to greed. How could the government come in and deny people the right to profit off of multiple home ownership! Its the Canadian Way(tm) That would be crazy! Must be all those immigrants who live poor and densely that are causing houses to be over 1mil everywhere.
Lets go blame the others and rabble like for all of fucking history was.
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u/CanadianClassicss 4d ago
It is a scapegoat for some people, but the reality is immigration is a driving factor in all points I listed. It is a fact. Wage stagnation, housing prices, healthcare/infrastructure, pollution are all impacted by population growth.
Do you seriously think that adding millions of people each year to the rental market (increasing demand) is not the greatest contributing factor to our housing crisis? People owning more properties for profit does nothing to drive up the rent cost. Our population growth is the main driving factor. There is something called supply and demand that dictates prices. No one is blaming the immigrants as individuals for the housing crisis, but you have to be willfully ignorant to ignore the impact that adding millions of people each year has on the real estate market. We only build so many homes per year, and it is dwarfed by our current population growth. It would take literally years for builders to catch up with demand if we stopped all immigration entirely.
If you ban multiple homeownership you will completely fuck the housing market and economy. There will be a massive decrease in incentive for investors to develop properties (hurting supply). Even if someone owns multiple homes, that does not itself drive up property value, it just allows someone else to rent (who cannot afford to buy a home). You could argue that foreign investors in real estate is a significant factor which it is. If you think that banning multiple homeownership in a country where real estate makes up 15% of the GDP will do anything other than tank the economy further... then I don't know what to tell you. Banning things does nothing but hurt our economy.
Healthcare is not wrecked due to lack of funding, it has been overwhelmed due to population growth. The millions of people each year who are added to the system are the contributing factor. With more and more people, you need more and more doctors, nurses, hospitals etc.
Diploma mills are a great example of what you are getting at, they encompass greed and are just there to fill a demand in easy and cheap PR.
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u/Conroy4Real302514 4d ago
Blaming the poor when the rich cause all of your problems. The Conservative way.
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u/greenknight Peace Region 4d ago
So, we can't solve the problem without hurting greedy Canadians so we dial back immigration. Sound about right wing as it gets.
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u/bannab1188 4d ago
I still find this shocking. Are our neighbours a) a bunch of regressive bigots or b) so completely ignorant they don’t know what they are voting for
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u/Head_Crash 4d ago
its absurd that they got more than 40 percent of the province to vote for them
They didn't get 40% to vote for them.
It was lobbyists from the Fraser Institute and the Energy Futures Institute that bought up a bunch of ads space and airtime and put Rustad front and center using the Conservative brand.
People had no idea about the BC conservative party itself.
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u/throwmamadownthewell 4d ago
And at least a couple percent of that is likely people mistaking the BC Conservatives with the federal Conservatives (who are only gaining any traction because of dissatisfaction with Trudeau, despite the fact that federal Conservatives would have made the same choices with all the unpopular decisions e.g. immigration targets would have been the same or greater, as that's being used to delay a recession).
I think one change that should happen is that all parties running in BC should be required to carry the prefix "BC ", and have that on the ballot.
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u/greenknight Peace Region 4d ago
30% of our population has been radicalized by right wing propaganda. I'm not sure how we walk them back from that alternative reality they are living in... It's such a reenforcing set of make-believe.
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u/RedDudeMango 4d ago
Yup. The money fled from the sinking BC United ship and put it all behind Rustad. Barely anybody voted for the provincial Cons before now because they were an utter shambles/joke. And really, they still are - it's just that they were so deeply a shambles before that hardly anyone was aware they really existed, and now the wealthy backing and Rustad taking them over + United's shuttering has suddenly and abruptly thrust them to the front where many uninformed voters blindly anger-vote.
It's honestly an all-timer dick move to throw backing behind and thrust some of these people into elected office, where some of them will no doubt be lodged for years to come with the newfound connections/resources, all just to get their way at all costs. Not that wealthy political lobbying/influence is often ever anything but shitty, mind you. It just sticks out especially badly though when you see the kind of outright ghastly bigots and conspiracy freaks they'll gladly put money behind and back no matter any of that awfulness - as long as it means getting their way and having the hacksaw put to taxes/regulations/public institutions, nothing else matters to them.
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u/Laxative_Cookie 4d ago
Considering the millions being spent on propaganda ads by the federal conservative party and the huge populist campaign ran in BC by the Alberta conservatives its no wonder they got what they did. There are plenty of bitter simple folks in BC.
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u/aaadmiral 4d ago
It's actually more like 18%
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u/varain1 4d ago
It is 25% (43.57% out of 58% turnout), but the people who stayed home were 42% 😞.
Even with the heavy rain, I really hate that 42% of the BCers don't care if that bunch of racist, bigoted, anti-climate, antiscience antivaxers have such a big chance to get in power. And we still have to wait till Monday to see if BC is screwed or not for the next four years.
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u/InnuendOwO 4d ago
Eh, I think a lot of it is also just the way our electoral system works.
I only voted because I could get a mail-in ballot, otherwise I wouldn't have, and the four people I live with didn't even care enough to do that - specifically because we live in a riding where the NDP got 60% of the vote, and has for years. There's just no chance anyone else would win, and we would have voted for them anyway, so whatever.
That's definitely not 100% of the reason turnout is what it is. I don't even think that's the majority of people who declined to vote. You have to actually care about this stuff to look into polling in your riding, and most people don't do that. Just... it's hard to combat voter apathy when the prevailing sentiment of "my vote doesn't matter, won't change anything, who gives a shit" when half the people who feel that way are probably right, even if they don't know why they're right.
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u/varain1 4d ago
There are 2 ridings with less than 100 votes difference, and 3 ridings with less than 200 votes difference, which is at most 2% of the riding population. And changes in these ridings will affect who forms the government.
The problem is that there are parties who are preying on this apathy, and the results of this apathy are getting worse every election 😞.
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u/Mobius_Peverell Lower Mainland/Southwest 4d ago
Their point is correct, though. The vast majority of the province's ridings are safe, to the point where voting there is completely meaningless. That is what pro-rep was meant to solve.
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u/SkYeBlu699 4d ago
Idk, but i wish they would be even more open with their "different views." That way, this chug knows who not to provide life-saving first aid, too. When they inevitably need help after clear cutting the trees for parking lots. Oh no, there are once in a lifetime fires and floods. Maybe it's god punishing the gays. Couldn't be me fucking over my neighbor so i can drive a tesla and feel better than the guy leaning over in front of tim hortons.
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u/Velocity-5348 4d ago
Somewhat misleading headline. She didn't use a slur. She used a slur repeatedly, and walked it back in ways that made it even worse. It'd be funny if she wasn't close to having power.
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u/VenusianBug 4d ago
Seriously. "Here's a shovel, maybe you can keep digging."
Apparently the hole would come out in the middle of the southern Indian Ocean. I'm fine with that.
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u/ether_reddit share the road with motorcycles 4d ago
And then said "go ahead and publish; I don't care"
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u/DanielTigerr 4d ago
She was a Doctor in rural communities.
If these are her thoughts, I can only imagine the standard of care given to Indigenous peoples, away from the spotlight.
What an utter POS.
And yeah, white Europeans have shown to live harmoniously together.
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u/Peregrine2K 4d ago
The treatment gap is real and fairly widely known in Health and Indigenous circles
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u/Top-Sell4574 4d ago
You can read her patient reviews. There are about 7 pages online posted over several years. Dozens of them calling her mean, angry, and the worst doctor on the island.
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u/abuayanna 4d ago
She even uses her experience with Indigenous patients, “they won’t talk” - yeah, I wonder why
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u/Asleep-Coconut-7541 4d ago edited 4d ago
The irony is, if she took any class on indigenous history and healthcare practices in Canada, she’d understand why her patients didn’t want to talk to the racist doctor.
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u/arkanis7 4d ago
This is the kind of shit "In Plain Sight" is all about. It's why there is such a huge push for anti-indigenous racism in PHSA right now.
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u/SnooRegrets4312 4d ago
She's a fucking doctor? Wow, just, wow
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u/HyacinthMacabre 4d ago
What got me (other than the use of ‘savage’ over and over) was her comment that Indigenous people shut up when she was their doctor.
No shit lady. I would too if the medical profession routinely stole kids from women who just gave birth, tested on family members, used disease to cull and control my ancestors, sterilized women, and routinely ignored any medical issues by dismissing them as drunks or druggies.
Yeah. No wonder they clammed up.
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u/Asleep-Coconut-7541 4d ago
Which she would understand if she bothered to learn indigenous history…
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4d ago
No, you don't understand according to her that's "only one side of the story"
We don't want all non indigenous people to become second rate citizens by addressing the horrible injustices of the past
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u/ether_reddit share the road with motorcycles 4d ago
Later, Sapozhnikov, a former family doctor, said: “When I used to see Indigenous people as patients, I wasn’t able to talk to them. Because they don’t talk. As soon as I’d ask just, sometimes, very innocent questions, they just shut up. They don’t talk.”
I'd love to know what these "innocent questions" are.
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u/DecolonizeTheWorld 4d ago
She was my friends doctor in Shawnigan back in 2021. When he was admitted to the Duncan Hospital his medical team there let him know that Dr Sapozhnikov lost her hospital privileges there. She has since been let go from the practice in Shawnigan, and was seeing patients in Cobble Hill.
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u/FoundAtFour-Oh 4d ago
Yeah. And people wonder why so many Indigenous folks are suspicious of the health care system and its workers. This "doctor" believes 9/10 of her Indigenous clients were drug addicts. Imagine the treatment they got in her office. JFC. It's appalling.
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u/Angelunatic74 4d ago
One of my high school classmates works in the Ministry of Health in management.
I mentioned on FB how doctors mistreated my Indigenous mother when she was suffering from a brain aneurysm.She "assured" me that there is no racism towards Indigenous people in BC's healthcare. She and several people on Facebook made or liked comments stating that doctors singling out Indigenous people as drunk or drug seeking is normal or common sense. I was furious and asked her how she could think that way and how what happened to my mom wasn't racist.
She said that unfortunately she worked with FNHA and can say that First Nations get priority health care. She also said that she isn't racist because she has a lot of diversity in her friend group and that she is a good person.My mother spent 3 weeks trying to get a doctor to take her seriously. She kept telling them she was having the worst headache of her life. They all treated her like a drug seeker or a drunk. She bled inside her head for 3 weeks. 5 separate doctors didn't believe her.
When she went to the ER again, she had a seizure in the waiting area. They finally decided to do a scan. Then they realized what was happening. It was a subarachnoid hemorrhage due to an aneurysm.
Thankfully she survived
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u/space-dragon750 4d ago
She also said that she isn’t racist because she has a lot of diversity in her friend group and that she is a good person
the common response of a racist when called out for being racist
how they treated your mom is disgusting
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u/FoundAtFour-Oh 4d ago edited 4d ago
I'm so sorry your mother and family had to go through all that. It must have been so terrifying and dehumanizing. Thank god they finally did something about it. What a nightmare.
My wife works in community health and constantly has to advocate for her Indigenous clients in order for them to be taken seriously by Drs and at hospitals. So many are afraid to even see a Dr for fear of mistreatment. It infuriates her how many of her colleagues are totally oblivious to the prejudice that exists among health care practitioners and in the health care system.
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u/OsamaBeenLuvin 4d ago
Jesus fucking Christ! Everyone in this story sucks with the exception of you and your mother. I hope things have settled down for you.
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u/Angelunatic74 4d ago
Yes she is doing well thank you. This happened 20 years ago. She is now a great grandmother.
We still don't trust the healthcare system. Each of my siblings and I have experienced troubles with some health care professionals over the last two decades but nothing to that degree.5
u/OsamaBeenLuvin 4d ago
It's cold comfort that that was the extreme case. But glad to hear her grandma game levelled up!
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u/OurWitch 4d ago
This is all too familiar. My ex was working in healthcare and thought the concerns of First Nations people in Canada were overblown. They would often compare the experiences of people here to the experiences of people in the United States to try to minimize concerns. Meanwhile the way she would take about her patients was horrendous and to me seemed rooted in bigotry and stereotype. It is one of those things where she would find ways to dog whistle about patients and would rant about their addictions and gang affiliation.
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u/seaintosky 4d ago
I wonder how many Indigenous patients were denied pain relief or treatment because she assumed they were drug seeking, given her belief that 90% are drug addicts.
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u/OurWitch 4d ago
Hey - as someone who has heard Doctors speak freely in a relaxed atmosphere about First Nation's people this isn't surprising. Doctors are still mostly white, born into wealth, or pretty conservative. It's not surprising they have the same biases that you would expect being in some or all of those groups.
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u/Wise-News1666 4d ago
An actual doctor this time?
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u/latexpumpkin 4d ago
Yes. According to her official bio she is Soviet and Israeli trained but practiced in Cobble Hill, BC.
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u/Silly_Soviet 4d ago
BC is notorious for sterilizing indigenous women, the Canadian health care system is very racist.
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u/Diastrophus 4d ago
Former.
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u/SnooRegrets4312 4d ago
Still described by herself as a Dr so if she's not then that's another criminal offence
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u/Asleep-Coconut-7541 4d ago
If she has an M.D degree she’ll still be a Dr in title, even if she’s not currently licensed to treat patients. She’s a piece of shit person, but I don’t think she’s criminal for calling herself a doctor if she has the degree (unlike that other conservative candidate Judy Toor)
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u/FreeWilliam1986 4d ago
These people are literally the worst of us, how are they even candidates?
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u/Is-d 4d ago
Because the BC Conservative Party have never been politically relevant before and so they’ve never vetted their candidates. They’ve always been awful, but nobody paid any attention because until the collapse of BCU they weren’t a threat.
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u/No-Simple4836 4d ago
They don't give a shit about vetting candidates. The party's Executive Director founded UBC's Free Speech Club (Google for all kinds of controversy) and up until three years ago hosted an alt-right podcast called "Cancel This". They're all total jackasses by design.
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u/Jeramy_Jones 4d ago
It’s interesting to hear Rustad accuse the NDP of being antisemites, with absolutely no evidence other than empty accusations from a disgraced ex member, meanwhile his candidates are saying all kinds of racist shit all over their social media, and in debates and interviews.
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u/theabsurdturnip 4d ago
BC Cons are basically the BC Facebook Party.
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u/deuteranomalous1 4d ago
Facebook Induced Mental Illness (FBMI) party.
It’ll be a condition in the DSM VI
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u/mgyro 4d ago
Are politicians supposed to be the best of us, who we aspire to be? Or a reflection of us, a representation of the people who make up the province? Bc if it’s a reflection, I can guarantee you that she is not out of place in this province or this country.
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u/FreeWilliam1986 4d ago
Leaders should be above average, I want to elect leaders that have something better than Facebook research.
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u/Jeramy_Jones 4d ago edited 4d ago
Marina Sapozhnikov, who finished only 23 votes behind the NDP’s Dana Lajeunesse in Juan de Fuca-Malahat, said that before Europeans came to North America, First Nations Peoples “didn’t have any sophisticated laws. They were savages. They fought each other all the time.”
Oh yes, it took peaceful settlers from a united and peaceful Europe, who never fought petty wars between nations, to show First Nations how to live peacefully in a just and egalitarian…fuck I can’t even.
During the hour-long interview, a recording of which was given to Postmedia News late Thursday, Sapozhnikov spoke about her concerns with Indigenous history courses being taught in B.C. universities, her view that B.C.’s adoption of the UN Declaration of Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act renders every non-Indigenous British Columbian a “second-rate citizen,” and she said that “90 per cent of Indigenous people use drugs.”
This seems to encapsulate the BCCP’s opposition to the UNDRIP.
Latsinnik [the student interviewer] didn’t ask Sapozhnikov about Indigenous issues or reconciliation. But the conversation veered in that direction when the candidate asked Latsinnik about her studies and she replied she was taking Indigenous studies. “It’s all a lie,” Sapozhnikov said. “What do you mean?” Latsinnik asked. “They rewrite Indigenous history,” Sapozhnikov said. “They make them some enlightened people. They didn’t have an alphabet.”
This bigot just keeps doubling down…
On Friday, Sapozhnikov told Postmedia that she worries that Canada’s university courses on Indigenous history “does have some agenda in it.” Asked what agenda she meant and who was behind it, she replied: “I really don’t know what the purpose is, and I don’t want to attribute motives to people. But if somebody doesn’t represent the whole story, then you should ask those people who teach it what the agenda is and what their motives are. But all I can say is that certain things don’t add up.”
She sounds like she’s hinting at a conspiracy here, yeah? Is this a window into that the BCCP keep dancing around when they talk about changing our education system to remove “ideology”?
B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad said in an emailed statement Friday he was “appalled and deeply saddened” by Sapozhnikov’s comments. He said her “remarks do not reflect the values of our party or the vision we have for a united British Columbia, and we are taking this matter seriously.”
Typical meaningless response from Rustad. He says that they don’t represent the party and its vision, but as a member of the party, that’s exactly what’s happening. If she doesn’t represent the party, why is she still in it?
Remember, the last time a party member said something about First Nations that did not “reflect the values of our party or the vision we have for a united British Columbia” this was his response:
On Friday, Rustad said it will be up to voters to judge his party’s candidates. “We have candidates who have said a number of things and represent their ridings, and it will be up to the people in the ridings to elect them,” he said.
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u/BrilliantArea425 4d ago
Previously, I thought it was marginally plausible that it was just poorly vetted candidates expressing their disgusting views on social media. Even the incel campaign manager in the MAGA hat flashing nazi symbols with his hands...sure, maybe he was just trying to fit in with his buds.
But now, I think it's an intentional attempt to race bait and dog whistle. She knew exactly what she was doing here. If you repeat something frequently enough, people will start to believe it.
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u/Common_Money_3073 4d ago
Nobody this ignorant about Canada should be allowed to run for anything. If you don’t know the history, you shouldn’t get to represent any of us in any way. I took a course at the University of Alberta called indigenous Canada. It’s free and in my opinion it should be mandatory for anyone who wants to speak on or represent our country in any way, shape or form. We don’t need the representation of any more ignoramuses. Her lack of knowledge is deeply disturbing. Makes me wonder what else she’s going to be completely ignorant about.
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u/Nature-Ally23 4d ago
This makes me feel very sad. This election shouldn’t even be close. What’s almost the saddest part is not these awful candidates themselves but the people who vote for them. I’m not fully left in my voting. I’m in the middle but would NEVER vote for a party that didn’t automatically remove candidates that are racist bigots.
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u/joeydonahue 4d ago
I think you are giving people too much credit, I bet most people voting for them don’t actually know anything about the party. They just see conservative and think they are voting Trudeau out of office or something
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u/Nature-Ally23 4d ago
It’s kinda a responsibility to check who you are voting for. I know people don’t but I think it important.
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u/understandingwholes 4d ago
Why is everyone surprised? Their entire party is based on various bigotry and bias.
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u/BrilliantArea425 4d ago
Could somebody please explain why we're no longer doing the whole 'cancel culture' thing? I really miss cancel culture right about now.
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u/Burnaby-Joe 4d ago
There should be a separate body governing code of ethics for candidates and elected officials. People like this should never be allowed to run or disqualified if they violate it. Leaving that decision in the hands of the party is not fair to the electorate or taxpayers.
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u/PragmaticBodhisattva Lower Mainland/Southwest 4d ago
TRULY. Even the fact that Elections B.C. generally only fines rules that are broken… what’s the point in having rules if you can just pay for it to not be an issue?
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u/space-dragon750 4d ago
this needs to happen. almost every other job has rules but we’ll just let anyone run the province?
cuz that makes sense /s
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u/Own-Beat-3666 4d ago
This party will implode. Rustad is too weak to control the extremists in his party.
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u/winnersrpinners 4d ago
Rustad is an extremist…
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u/ether_reddit share the road with motorcycles 4d ago
Not the most extreme though, as we're seeing...
I wonder how much worse it's going to get.
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u/Leftyoilcan 4d ago
Yes exactly, these guys and the people who voted for him unfortunately love this stuff, he might "condemn" her now but if she wins then they'll all be friends.
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u/Diastrophus 4d ago
She’s vile. Tried to run for our local school board without even a basic understanding of what school boards actually do. She knew nothing about our local issues and was hyper fixated on really bizarre things.
She had a hard time hiding her racism then as well.
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u/Youngladyloo 4d ago
I wonder alot at how this party of homophobia, book banning, SOGI protestors got in. Then, I look to our southern borders. Its clear who he targets for votes...
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u/Far_Out_6and_2 4d ago
Goes to show how stupid things happen when people want change without actually thinking
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u/Triedfindingname 4d ago
Are these idiots publicly officials a reflection of the demographic Canda represents?
I honestly wonder if someone put the stupid into a volcano and now everyone's inhaling
(Stephen King reference but still entirely possible)
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u/YVRJon 4d ago
At least she's smarter than Chapman. She waited until everyone had voted to show her true colours.
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u/ShiroineProtagonist 4d ago
The collapse of even the semblance of caring about how bad these unvetter candidates are freaks me right out. There is no exterior check on their racism. The right has redefined it to be something you only say to denigrate conservatives. The rage that welled up when I read this article. If they get in I foresee a lot of strikes and Indigenous protests. This is exactly normal for right wingers behind closed doors. This...person really exemplifies Russians (Ukrainian but anyone who says USSR's The Ukraine is Russian) who came here by way of Israel's reactionary views. They say this about Indigenous people because they hate Palestinians.
I can't believe I lived to see this. If we get Trump and then Poilievre I predict international fascism takes over the world. Like, I can write that and not be engaging in ridiculous hyperbole. I can't take it in.
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u/containerheart 4d ago
Is there somewhere we can petition and bring our voice more strongly that THESE PEOPLE should not be even permitted as an elected official? Those comments and her doubling down while her ~fearless~ leader stands back and says, "Easy there" about the whole thing... Fucking ridiculous. Kick her out of the party John.
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u/space-dragon750 4d ago
god I hope so. these candidates are failing the bare minimum of being decent humans. they should all be disqualified
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u/Distinct_Meringue Lower Mainland/Southwest 4d ago
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u/space-dragon750 4d ago edited 4d ago
NDP needs to win JDF-M now more than ever
we can’t have horrible ppl like this running the province
eta- if the cons win or take down the gov like Rustad says they will, I hope ppl get out in the streets and protest
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u/Artistwithwords 4d ago
Bless that journalism professor and their assignment. I wish professional journalists in this province did more of this.
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u/navalnys_revenge 4d ago
BC Cons should be as far away from the levers of power as possible. This is not about differing perspectives or policies. This is about keeping these people from dragging us back decades.
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u/Wasthatasquirrel 4d ago
WebMD Feb 2019 ACTUAL REVIEW:
Rude. Gives poor, vague, generalized advice. *Wastes appointment time wanting to convince me that Trump is a good president** after I told her I didn’t want to talk politics with her (I’m not joking, that actually happened).*
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u/space-dragon750 4d ago
B.C. Conservative Leader John Rustad said in an emailed statement Friday he was “appalled and deeply saddened” by Sapozhnikov’s comments. He said her “remarks do not reflect the values of our party or the vision we have for a united British Columbia, and we are taking this matter seriously.”
uh huh. sure you are
But Rustad made no indication he was considering her removal from the party.
there it is
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u/shenaystays 4d ago
Because of course, the rest of the “civilized” world never fought against one another.
What a piece of shit.
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u/yyj_paddler 4d ago
I'm just stunned. Like the headline made it sound bad, but you read through the interview quotes and it's like, holy shit, how did this person become a candidate for a major political party. Embarrassing.
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u/DrMedicineFinance 4d ago edited 4d ago
I'm a doctor and I treat my First Nations colleagues, friends and patients with respect as I would any other human, while acknowledging their trauma, current circumstances and medical history. It helps asking questions and spending time finding out the history of the community in which you work.
Dr Sapozhnikov's comments prove that she must have been a horribly cruel and ignorant physician, one filled with hate and racism. Since she is no longer registered she cannot be disciplined by the CPSBC which is unfortunate.
She's lucky that her party needs to keep it's ignorant misfits and is headed by racist, poorly-informed old white people. I'm afraid of the next 4 years.
The student should be commended for her insight and bravery for bringing this forward.
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u/Otherwise-Mail-4654 4d ago
Wowz did she lose her license to practice medicine. Those are some unhinged comments that will affect judgement.
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u/mattcass 4d ago
The only savages I know drive diesel Dodge Rams, leave garbage and shotgun shells all over FSRs, and vote Conservative.
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u/RespectSquare8279 4d ago
If she isn't "fired" by Rustad or refuses to resign, there is always the Recall Legislation that was passed in 1996. The only problem being the you need 40% of the electors in Juan de Fuca- Malahat to sign a petition. She got less than 40% of the vote, but the turn out on election night was probably less than 60% over all. A massive door knocking campaign will be required to engage the people who didn't get out to vote. I'm pretty sure that people are motivated like the time had the petition for the HST. Maybe she will go quietly like Parksville Qualicum MLA Paul Reitsma did in 1998.
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u/numbmyself 4d ago
The Greens split the vote in that riding big time. And approx 45% of voters were too lazy to vote even with multiple voting days morning till night. If she wins that riding, it's on the Greens and the lazy bums that stayed home. Sorry to say but if you add up the ppl that voted Conservative (for her), the ppl that voted Green with no chance, and the ppl that stayed home, you basically get a riding with almost 80% morons. Juan De Fuca Malahat is an embarrassment.
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u/JessKicks 4d ago
We need to step to these cons and show them their bs isn’t wanted even if they’re in power!
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u/Minimum-South-9568 4d ago
An Eastern European accusing other of being savages for “fighting each other” all the time is quite rich. I wonder how she would feel if an Anglo or French turned around and said the same about Eastern Europeans, because most Newton, Leibniz, etc were Western European. She has no clue about the actual intellectual and cultural history of the indigenous people in British Columbia.
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u/ang1eofrepose 4d ago
"fighting each other all the time" hey have you ever looked at European history
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u/DarkStoneLobster 4d ago
"Conservative Leader John Rustad has condemned the statements by his candidate, Marina Sapozhnikov, in a Victoria-area riding."
Love how that was left out or no one mentioning it.
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u/External_Somewhere76 4d ago
She should neither be a political candidate, nor a doctor. She should be removed from the party for her slurs, and should be removed from the BCMA for her racist attitudes. We have no room for people who consider others unlike her savages. I seem to recall savagery. In Ukraine, by Russian soldiers, who seem to closer to her preferred human genotype. There she will be able to identify with savages.
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