Canadian Civil Liberties Boss Says ‘Burn It All Down’ as Churches Torched

The executive director of the British Columbia Civil Liberties Association (BCCLA), Harsha Walia, is under fire for commenting on a story about the wave of church arsons sweeping Canada by saying “Burn it all down.”

Walia, a Bahrain-born South Asian based in Vancouver and described as “a community organizer and campaigner in migrant justice, feminist, anti-capitalist, abolitionist, and anti-imperialist movements” in her profile at the left-wing Intercept, made the inflammatory intervention in response to a VICE report on two Roman Catholic churches being burned down in Alberta and Nova Scotia.

Many churches have been burned or vandalised in recent days, amidst reports of unmarked graves — often wrongly described as “mass graves” by the mainstream media — being uncovered at former Indian Residential Schools, which native children were once required to attend as part of a government effort to integrate them into Canada’s culture.

The schools, typically run by churches, were established in the 1800s. It has been reported that at least some of the graves used to be marked, with the BBC pointing out that “Burial plots used to be marked with wooden crosses that crumbled over the years” at one of the sites.

I don’t understand why the ED of the BC Civil Liberties Assoc is calling for violence. Violence and hate don’t appear to be solutions being proposed by Indigenous communities, and it is their voices we should be listening to and respecting on this matter pic.twitter.com/3uLktzz8AS

— Nico Slobinsky (@nicoslobinsky) July 4, 2021