After 38 years working as a paramedic in Powell River, B.C., Ted Vizzutti retired in 2023. It wasn’t a willing or graceful exit, however. The end of his career arrived unexpectedly after his employer, BC Emergency Health Services (BCEHS), demanded Vizzutti attend a disciplinary meeting over allegations that he’d made racist statements online and in public. While Vizzutti believed he had done or said nothing wrong, his union recommended that he retire to avoid a long and expensive fight he was unlikely to win. Without his union at his back, Vizzutti reluctantly took the advice, confident he could still work part-time after retiring, something paramedics often do. Only after he had formally quit, however, did BCEHS inform him that if he ever tried to work again in health care anywhere in the province, it would revive its disciplinary action against him.
At issue were Vizzutti’s off-duty actions in speaking his mind about a controversy that has convulsed his city since May 2021 – a demand from a local Indigenous band that the city’s name be changed in the interests of “reconciliation”. Powell River was named for 19th century federal Indian Superintendent Israel Wood Powell, and the Tla’amin Nation now claims this creates a painful reminder of Canada’s colonial past. Such feelings are not universally shared, however. As a member of the group Concerned Citizens of Powell River, Vizzutti participated in a door-to-door campaign informing local residents about the name-change efforts, and in May 2023 attended a peaceful protest at city hall. It was at this rally that a local native activist vowed to get Vizzutti fired for his advocacy. Successfully, as it turns out.
In exercising his constitutionally-protected right as a Canadian citizen to participate in the democratic process, Vizzutti received the most dramatic punishment his employer could deliver. “I never did anything wrong but I am being treated like dirt,” he told The New Westminster Times after BCEHS basically banned him for life. To be clear, there is no record that Vizzutti said or did anything that could be considered racist in the conventional, fact-based sense of the word. He did, however, clearly express his personal opposition to an Indigenous political objective. And these days, that alone can cost you your job.
Collaboration Goes Missing
Powell River is a picturesque coastal city of about 14,000 people, roughly a five-hour drive from Vancouver. Since it takes two ferry rides to get there by car or bus, it has always been a close-knit and self-reliant community. Aside from the area’s rugged beauty, harvesting natural resources has long been the city’s economic mainstay. The closing of the local paper mill in 2021, however, placed a severe strain on the once-prosperous city and its $48 million-per-year municipal budget.
Adjacent to Powell River lies the Tla’amin Nation, formerly the Sliammon Indian Band, comprised of about 1,200 registered members. In 2016, the Tla’amin Nation became a self-governing entity and since then has focused on revitalizing its ancestral language – Ay-A-Ju-Thum – and promoting other aspects of its traditional culture. Annual expenses for the Tla’amin Nation are $23 million, with the vast bulk of its revenues coming from government transfers. Not all the largesse is spent annually; as of 2022 it had an accumulated surplus of $92 million.
Relations between Powell River and the Tla’amin Nation have historically been very collaborative, with the B.C. Treaty Commission holding up the relationship as a model for the entire province. A key factor is the local Community Accord, created in 2003 in response to a proposed coastal walking path that the Tla’amin believed would interfere with their historical sites. The Accord led to a consultation process – known as “C3” meetings – at which Powell River city councillors, Tla’amin representatives and appointees from the surrounding regional district sit down to discuss matters of common concern. In 2018, this process led to the Powell River Regional District renaming itself “qathet”, which means “working together” in Ay-A-Ju-Thum.
Perhaps emboldened by the earlier renaming success – which occurred without any significant public consultation – on May 12, 2021 the C3 group’s Tla’amin representatives presented a new proposal to change Powell River’s name as well. The initial discussion was only tentative, and Powell River’s representatives responded by saying the municipality needed time to consider the idea. Then-mayor Dave Formosa suggested the item should be “put…to the people” in a plebiscite at the next civic election, while city councillor George Doubt stressed the need for “consultation” and “education” before making any decision.
Instead of a vote, Hackett proposed a ‘government to government’ process followed by swift action: ‘The prospect of changing the name must not be a matter of “if”, but a matter of “when”.’
Reacting to the initial hesitancy from city officials, C3 Tla’amin representative Dillon Johnson agreed that the costs and impact of formally changing the city’s name made this a major request. “I imagine this might be tough to justify from the city’s point of view,” he said at the meeting. “Resources are really tight.” Further, according to the Powell River Peak’s coverage of the meeting, Tla’amin executive councillor Erik Blaney himself “said the referendum idea is good and provides time to put together the educational materials needed and really work with the community.”
One month later, however, the cooperative tone changed dramatically when John Hackett, the chief or “Hegus” of the Tla’amin, sent a follow-up letter entitled “Proposed Name Change” to Powell River’s mayor and council. Although the letter was framed as a “request”, Hackett had no intention of negotiating. “If the City believes in reconciliation, it must disassociate our homelands with [sic] the name of Israel Powell, a man who was instrumental in carrying out the residential school policy and is credited with outlawing the potlatch,” Hackett wrote. He cited “the recent finding of a 215-child grave at the Kamloops Residential School” as reason for the new sense of urgency, concluding, “No one can deny the truth any longer that the atrocities our people faced under this appalling colonial policy are real.” [Emphasis in original]
Contrary to the news coverage of the earlier C3 discussion, Hackett further claimed that Tla’amin representatives were firmly against a referendum. “Having the dominant culture decide whether the harms done to Tla’amin people and our rights outweigh their attachment to colonialism is a classic strategy to maintain the status quo,” he wrote. Instead of a vote, Hackett proposed a “government to government” process followed by swift action: “The prospect of changing the name must not be a matter of ‘if’, but a matter of ‘when’.” [Emphasis in original.] It seemed a stunning reversal from the spirit of collaboration once typical of the C3 relationship.
The Case Against Israel Wood Powell
Hackett’s letter is technically correct on this point: Israel Wood Powell was responsible for residential schools in the province from 1872 to 1889. As the Superintendent of Indian Affairs for B.C. during that time, all of federal native policy fell under his responsibility. But there is much more to Powell’s story.
According to local amateur historian Arthur Richards, Powell had very little direct role in the development of residential schools in B.C. One school was already operating when Powell took office, and another opened just as he was leaving; the rest of the province’s 18 residential schools came after he was gone. Of greater relevance, Richards points out in an interview, is that Powell was a strong advocate of free non-sectarian education for all residents, and focused most of his native education efforts on creating Indian day schools.
As his entry in the authoritative Dictionary of Canadian Biography (DCB) further explains, Powell was elected to the House of Assembly in Vancouver in 1863 “on a platform that included responsible government and free public schools.” The DCB also notes that Powell was “more sympathetic to native people than most of his contemporaries were,” citing his advocacy for native land claims and water rights as evidence of his belief that Indigenous groups deserved access to a “sound economic base.”
“Few men have made a greater contribution to the development of British Columbia or served the public more consistently,” historian Bruce McKelvie wrote of Powell in 1947. McKelvie called Powell the “first champion” of Indigenous people in British Columbia. Richards agrees, noting Powell was one of the few government officials of his time to express any interest in providing any education to Indigenous children. It seems odd, then, that such a liberal thinker as Powell would be considered such a key colonial villain by the pro-name-change lobby today. It is certainly incorrect to paint him as the main engine for residential schools in the province, given the facts about the founding of B.C.’s 18 residential schools.
Unlikely candidate for cancellation: According to the authoritative Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Israel Wood Powell, the federal Superintendent of Indian Affairs in B.C. from 1872 to 1889, was “more sympathetic to native people than most of his contemporaries.” Other historians cite him as a “first champion” of Indigenous people. (Source of photo: MrMemer223 – University of Victoria, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0)
The same goes for tenuous efforts to link Powell to the alleged (and to date entirely unconfirmed) “graves” in Kamloops. Sean Carleton, a University of Manitoba scholar/activist, has gone so far as to claim that some Tla’amin children actually went to the Kamloops Indian Residential School. There is no evidence for this; Tla’amin parents were actually told to send their children to the much closer Sechelt Residential School while they waited for the local day school to be built.
In addition to unsupported allegations attempting to make Powell responsible for the entirety of residential school policy in the province, the most significant negative action attributed to his term was his role in “outlawing the potlatch.” The potlatch was a distinctive Northwest Indigenous gift-giving ceremony meant to display wealth and status between bands. Over time, and with the arrival of European trade goods, these gifts became ever-more elaborate and expensive – including canoes, firearms, copper items and even people of low status (what we might call slaves). Sometimes the gifts would actually be destroyed by the recipients to establish their own position and prestige. The ceremony was banned by colonial authorities for its impoverishing effect on the native economy, a move that today is cited as evidence of the colonial era’s suppression of native culture.
It is true that Powell opposed these extravagant potlach ceremonies because he thought the practice would, as he explained it, “retard civilizing influences.” But he had good company in his opposition; many native leaders felt the same way. Federal government archives include a document entitled General Correspondence Regarding Laws to Curtail the Practice of Potlatch Among the Indians of British Columbia and containing a petition from several Indigenous chiefs representing Port Simpson, Kincolith, Greenville and other places in B.C. pleading with Powell that “the system of Potlatching…be put down.” These native leaders wanted the government to end potlatches because of the increasing cost, which put their own poorer tribes at a disadvantage.
After the potlatch was formally prohibited through an amendment to the federal Indian Act in 1885, Powell adopted a sensitive approach that respected both sides in this complicated issue. According to Richards’ research, Powell recommended “using [Indian] Agents to dissuade” bands from holding the practice rather than cracking down hard through legal force. “Powell’s non-confrontational approach to Indian Affairs,” his DCB biography notes, “headed off aboriginal dissatisfaction.”
A Profusion of Powells
The factual record regarding Israel Wood Powell is clearly more complicated than Hackett’s strident letter lets on. Powell was undoubtedly a man of his time and believed that the assimilation of Indigenous people into Western society offered them their best hope for success. While a somewhat unpopular view today, it was a very common belief at the time, particularly among liberal or progressive thinkers. Even Peter Henderson Bryce, the doctor and federal civil servant now widely celebrated for expressing early concerns about residential schools, wanted to greatly expand the system in order to educate more native children. Powell may be judged guilty of a paternalistic attitude towards Indigenous groups by today’s standards, but there is no doubt he worked hard to improve their circumstances. His effort in building day schools on reserves, in particular, was meant to allow Indigenous children to get a free education, as had become the right of all other children in B.C.
Tremblay says the case for Israel Wood Powell being the namesake of Powell Lake – and by extension Powell River – lacks any primary source. It first appears in a 1906 book on B.C. place names, without any underlying historical reference.
Beyond this rich historical complexity – Powell was a liberal on Indigenous matters by the standards of his era, Indigenous leaders themselves wanted the potlatch scaled back or ended and, crucially, Powell had little to do with residential schools – it is not even clear that Powell River is named for him. Robin Tremblay, another resident of Powell River with a deep interest in history, has done significant research on this subject at his own expense. His paper, The Name Matters – The Truth Matters: The Origins of the Naming of Powell River, asserts that the city may in fact be named for someone else entirely: Edward J. Powell.
This other Powell was the Chief Cartographer of the British Admiralty’s Hydrographic Office; as such, he was responsible for creating many of the etches used for the Royal Navy’s charts while it was exploring B.C.’s coast. It is well established, Tremblay says, that both Powell Point and Edward Point on the Skeena River farther north were named for the mapmaker by Commander John G.J. Hanmer of the HMS Daring in 1877. Tremblay believes Hanmer did the same thing that same year when naming Powell Lake, from which Powell River flows.
Powell, Powell everywhere: Local historian Robin Tremblay (top left) argues that Powell River may not actually be named for Israel Wood Powell, noting other locations in the province are named for Edward J. Powell, the British Admiralty’s Chief Cartographer in the late 1800s. Clockwise from top right, an online map showing a Powell Point on Gilford Island, B.C., Powell Lake, B.C., and an excerpt from a Royal Navy chart bearing the imprint of mapmaker Powell. (Sources of photos: (top left) Paul Galinski/PEAK; (bottom right) Powtown Post)
Tremblay says the case for Israel Wood Powell being the namesake of Powell Lake – and by extension Powell River – lacks any primary source. It first appears in a 1906 book on B.C. place names, but without any underlying historical reference of the sort that substantiates the naming of Powell Point and Edward Point. “There is not a shred of evidence” indicating Powell River is named for Israel Wood Powell, Tremblay stated in written communications with the author.
Further, Tremblay noted that a review of Powell’s personal correspondence failed to reveal any mention of the honour supposedly bestowed on him – a strange omission. More tangentially, he observed, Powell visited the region three times between 1873 and 1882 aboard various Royal Navy vessels, but “never once stopped to observe” the Powell River area, something one might expect if a lake, river and settlement were all named for him. Considering the weight of evidence for and against, Tremblay concluded, it is likely that “the naming never happened and the area was of no importance to [Israel Wood] Powell at all.”
Consultation to Declaration to Denunciation: The Joint Working Group Gets Busy
Regardless of the true provenance of Powell River’s name, following Hackett’s “request,” the civic government quickly began a consultation process into possibly changing the city’s name. According to a July 13, 2021 memorandum from Russell Brewer, the city’s Chief Administrative Officer, “The general guiding policy is that a name change should be driven by the local community.” By October 19, 2021, however, this had become a “City Renaming Process Engagement”, with declarative terminology inserted into the terms of reference prepared for a Joint Working Group (JWG) that was created to study the topic.
“Naming the city after Israel Powell, whose racist and oppressive policies against Indigenous Peoples have recently come to light, is inconsistent with our shared commitment to reconciliation,” the terms of reference read. “Communication with residents about why the existing name is inconsistent with reconciliation is important.” Rather than consulting with local citizens about what they thought about a name change, the JWG had quietly adopted the mission of instructing the public in the right way of thinking.
The JWG began work in November 2021 and was comprised of Powell River and Tla’amin Nation politicians, as well as appointees from both communities, with consultants Trina Isakson and Lisa Moffatt later added to help guide the process. The duo held “information sessions” and conducted an online survey to gauge what the public was “currently feeling about a possible name change.”
The first such event occurred on May 7, 2022 and unfolded like any typical town hall meeting, with an airing of opinions both pro and con. Two subsequent events on May 11 and June 1 were noticeably different. Both opened with Indigenous drummers in full regalia and an Indigenous prayer that required everyone to stand. And now – unlike in the first meeting – whenever someone spoke against changing the city’s name, other audience members stood and turned their backs to them. As Powell River residents Jim Blom and Sherry Burton later pointed out in an email to the consultants, “We have shown the utmost respect to Tla’amin Nation elders throughout this process, yet our elders are not respected in return.”
The initial “community engagement” efforts led to Consultant Report – Phase 1 (begins on page 18 of linked document), which included the aforementioned survey’s results. These were tabulated in a very strange way, however. Instead of showing the total number of people for or against the name change, the responses were reported in bar graphs as percentages over five age categories. This served to mask the scale of popular opinion regarding the proposal, since very few people under the age of 20 responded to the survey, while their share was recorded as being equivalent to each of the other age groups. Regardless of the obfuscation, it is clear that every age category of Powell River residents recorded net opposition to the idea, with the nays growing in number with each older category. Intriguingly, the survey showed that a majority of “racialized and Indigenous people” also opposed changing the city’s name.
In response to the clearly expressed – if deliberately muddied – wishes of the public, the consultants declared the outcome of the consultation process to be inconclusive, with “more conversations” required. The initial idea for a plebiscite was also dismissed. “A referendum represents the opposite of a conversation, and will divide the city into two opposing opinions,” Isakson and Moffatt argue in their report. “It will escalate the negativity and campaigning that we saw this spring.” It is a bizarre claim to make, since addressing controversial issues decisively and in a democratic manner provides a clear resolution and allows people to move on. The pair of consultants further warned against subjecting the matter to a vote because, they fretted, if Powell River’s council then decided to stick with the city’s historical name, relations with the Tla’amin Nation would be “strongly damaged”.
Only Subhumans Disagree
After receiving the consultants’ findings, the city’s JWG issued its own report. It too expressed great interest in more “community engagement” to bring about reconciliation in Powell River. While a referendum was acknowledged as an “available tool,” the JWG decided it was “not the appropriate tool to utilize right now.”
According to New Westminster Times editor David Brett, former Tla’amin Chief L. Maynard Harry used the term ‘subhuman’ 15 times in the course of a 90-minute interview, always in reference to ‘white people.’
In addition to its complete lack of interest in the expressed opinions of Powell River’s citizenry, the JWG’s report had several other odd aspects. One was the decision to spell out key Indigenous concepts and names using a foreign-looking language system called the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Because pre-contact Indigenous languages in what is now Canada were pre-literate (that is, without a written language), there is no foundational system for translating native speaking patterns into conventional writing. Using the familiar Roman alphabet is the simplest and most inclusive approach, since everyone in Canada can read it. Instead, the defenders of Ay-A-Ju-Thum chose the IPA, which was created by linguists in the 1800s and includes many unusual symbols and squiggles that are meaningless to the overwhelming majority of readers. Since there are only five fluent speakers of the Tla’amin variant of Ay-A-Ju-Thum in existence, writing things out in this way creates a barrier to communications rather than providing an aid.
Equally strange are the frequent references to “racism” and “hate” throughout the consultation process. Nothing in the video recordings of the three town hall meetings linked to above reveals anything racist being uttered. Instead, the JWG relies on the concept of “epistemic racism”, which is defined as “the positioning of the knowledge of one racialized group as superior to another.” In this way, the fact that non-Indigenous participants cited historical evidence to back their arguments against changing Powell River’s name and vehemently disagreed with the views of Indigenous spokespeople justified JWG member Harmony Johnson’s claim that a “fire hose of racism” was unleashed at the meetings.
Who’s the racist? Joint Working Group member Harmony Johnson (top left) claimed a “fire hose of racism” was unleashed during the name-change debate in Powell River, yet the only explicitly racist comments heard came from former Tla’amin Hegus L. Maynard Harry (top right), who told the New Westminster Times that “white people in Canada are subhuman.” At bottom, city residents gather at Powell River City Hall on May 4, 2023 to request a referendum on changing their city’s name. (Sources of photos: (top left) Powell River; (top right) The New Westminster Times; (bottom) Paul Galinski/PEAK)
During the entire name-change process, the only obvious instance of identifiable public racism – that is, a belief that members of a certain group are inferior because of their race and should have fewer rights or receive poorer treatment on this basis – is to be found in the statements of L. Maynard Harry, a former Tla’amin Hegus and architect of the original 2003 Community Accord. This past February, Harry told The New Westminster Times that “white people in Canada are subhuman.” According to Times editor David Brett, Harry used the term “subhuman” 15 times in the course of a 90-minute interview, always in reference to “white people”.
The Martyrdom of Ted Vizzutti
A “public engagement” process featuring a blatantly pre-determined consultants’ report and the apparent sabotaging of a good-faith referendum proposal caused escalating cynicism and frustration among Powell River residents. As time went on, a palpable sense of anger began to grow throughout the city; in some cases long-time friends stopped speaking with one another. As civic relations collapsed, the JWG announced that a “pause” was needed. City council members decided to delay any decision on a name change until after the upcoming municipal election in fall 2022.
The promised “pause” did not mean complete inaction, however, as other public bodies began to drop Powell’s name one-by-one, including the former Powell River General Hospital, the Powell River Board of Education, the Powell River ferry advisory committee, and the Powell River campus of Vancouver Island University. The university campus now spells its name tiwšɛmawtxw. To further promote Ay-A-Ju-Thum, “The Name Matters” website sells t-shirts and other “merch” emblazoned with Tla’amin words in the obscure IPA writing system. These have proven popular with self-proclaimed progressives when visiting the area, including federal NDP leader Jagmeet Singh and the aforementioned University of Manitoba academic/activist Carleton.
In response to all this, local residents Verne Kinley, Dean Gerhart and Dan Ouellette created the group Concerned Citizens of Powell River to promote retaining the city’s original name. Their campaign included distributing “I [heart] Powell River” t-shirts, buttons and stickers to boost civic pride. Vizzutti joined the group and bought a t-shirt, posting a picture of himself wearing it on his Facebook page. He also posted the following message in advance of a Concerned Citizens of Powell River rally at city hall on May 3, 2021: “We, the citizens of Powell River, are coming together to tell elected officials that we are not in favour of a name change for our city. Please come out in support with your signs and voices. Two wrongs don’t make a right.” It was at this rally that counter-protestors vowed to get Vizzutti fired from his paramedic’s job.
The day after the protest, Vizzutti received a disciplinary letter from Sheree Haydu, Manager, Clinical Operations, Sunshine Coast for BCEHS. It stated: “On May 4, 2023, the Employer was made aware of your involvement in the following allegations: Circulating racist, anti-indigenous, and defamatory content on social media and door to door.” A key piece of evidence against him: he once referred to Indigenous people as “Indians” in a Facebook post.
As Vizzutti later explained in an interview, “I was only referring to Indians because I was repeating the words of an email advising teachers ‘to put on their orange shirts and go out and support the Indians’” for a counter-rally meant to disrupt the Concerned Citizens of Powell River’s meeting at city hall. Vizzutti was thus using his opponents’ own phraseology. In any event, “Indian” is not a racist term as numerous laws, regulations and legal expressions still officially use the term, including the federal Indian Act.
For his alleged infractions, Vizzutti was placed on administrative leave pending a hearing; he was later informed he was the subject of four letters of complaint. While only his union was made privy to the letters’ content – violating a basic tenet of justice, namely the right to confront one’s accuser – he was told they were form letters, one of which came from a city councillor’s daughter. Further complaints followed, as Tla’amin First Nation members and work colleagues began to claim his very presence made them “feel unsafe.” Vizzutti wondered if he was supposed to “apologize for something that I didn’t do.”
Eventually, Burroughs was placed on paid leave until he retired a few months later. ‘In my 35 years working for the [school] board, I never had any issues or complaints until I spoke up about my opposition to the name change and mass graves,’ he says dispiritedly.
In discussing the allegations, Vizzutti recounts that he was told by the union that the hearing process was “going to be a termination meeting.” He could, however, opt to retire early and avoid any loss of income due to time spent on administrative leave. As it turned out, the offer was a poisoned chalice. Only after taking his union’s advice did he discover BCEHS’ plan to ensure he never works in health care again. It was, in essence, a scorched-earth human resources policy. Vizzutti has since filed a human rights complaint, but it will likely be a year before his case is heard.
Distressingly, Vizzutti’s situation is not unique in Powell River. Brian Burroughs, a custodian at the local school board, also used social media to express his opposition to the name change and to question the existence of “mass graves” at residential schools. He too was then subjected to complaints; a parent told his principal the posts were a “threat to the school.” According to Burroughs, when he asked, “What exactly was the comment that I made?” his principal simply responded, “It’s regarding the name change.”
When the matter was passed along to the board superintendent, the discussion turned darkly to the possibility Burroughs could be fired for violating the board’s code of conduct. Eventually, Burroughs was placed on paid leave until he retired a few months later. “In my 35 years working for the board, I never had any issues or complaints until I spoke up about my opposition to the name change and mass graves,” he says dispiritedly in an interview.
It appears that any employee at any public institution in Powell River risks losing their job for simply expressing their own personal views about a matter of considerable public interest. Diane Sparks, a member of Concerned Citizens of Powell River, said in an interview via email that she was “shocked to discover while out door knocking to canvas opinions on the possible name change that people were afraid to state publicly that they opposed it.” She said one woman told her that she “worked for the hospital and was afraid that she might lose her job if she expressed her opinion.”
The Powell River reign of terror includes not only threats of termination, but vandalism and intimidation as well. Cars with “bumper stickers opposing the name change have been damaged,” Sparks says. And “some businesses were warned that if they supported opposition to the name change, they would not be patronized.” The Tla’amin Nation has also issued numerous press statements aggressively attacking Concerned Citizens of Powell River, calling it an “extremist group” for wanting to hold a referendum.
Democracy Goes Missing
Rather than delivering clarity, the municipal election of 2022 produced a largely dysfunctional seven-member city council, with three councillors (including the newly elected former consultant Isakson) strongly supporting changing the city’s name, two (including new mayor Ron Woznow) backing a referendum and the remaining two initially ambivalent but becoming more supportive of a name change over time. During the frequent debates on this matter, the pro-change councillors have often used points of order to curtail the speech of residents who oppose them. When that became too much work, they tried to amend the city’s bylaws to take away their citizens’ foundational right to be heard at city hall altogether.
In response to these ominous developments, the Concerned Citizens of Powell River were provided with a legal brief from Kirsten Kramar, a criminology professor at the University of Calgary and an expert on freedom of expression. Kramar found that the proposed amendments clearly violate the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms by forcing the city’s workplace rules regarding “respectful behaviour” onto all citizens of Powell River.
This, Kramar asserts, amounts to a “duplicitous abuse of power by weaponizing a human resources policy to shut down and apply punitive measures against residents of the City of Powell River who express political opinions with which [city officials] disagree.” Other residents have sought outside legal help from other sources. Patricia Martin, for example, retained the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms to send a “demand letter” to councillors warning them against trying to suppress the speech of citizens in council meetings.
The Powell River renaming process has deteriorated into a deeply divisive issue that has turned a once-collaborative community into a fiercely combative one. The current plan, approved at a fractious council meeting this past February, is to hold a “public opinion poll” in concert with the 2026 municipal election. This severely undermines a previous plan backed by mayor Woznow to hold a referendum-style vote in two years.
Based on the pro-name-change council clique’s past actions, the planned poll’s impact will likely depend on whether or not it supports their point of view. Those who seek to change the city’s name are apparently determined to make it happen regardless of public opinion or the methods required. Further muddying the waters, former Powell River Chief Administrative Officer Brewer now works for the Tla’amin Nation. This adds to concerns expressed by many Powell River residents about the local native government’s deep involvement in a process that should rightly be decided by city voters alone.
Truth First, Then Reconciliation
Since the release of the federal Truth and Reconciliation Commission’s report in 2015, “truth and reconciliation” has become a much-repeated phrase in Canada. We still have a long way to go to fulfilling this concept. As the Powell River name-change debacle reveals, “truth” no longer means a reliance on verifiable facts. The true historical record of Israel Wood Powell – which reveals him to be an enlightened and liberal administrator with broad sympathy for the Indigenous condition – is of no consequence to this debate. Further, no one even seems to care if Powell River is actually named for the man. And we are now at a point where the very concepts of “facts” and “knowledge” are denounced as “racist”.
Indigenous people throughout this country are suffering in isolated communities with high rates of violence, fetal alcohol syndrome, economic dependency and educational deficiencies. They need emergency interventions and access to high-quality services.
As for “reconciliation”, relations between native and non-native in Powell River have never been lower. The name-change debate has become a political powerplay that has driven a wedge through this once-placid community. What was supposed to be a healing process has metastasized into an attempt to impose the will of a minority on everyone else, using tactics that would rightfully be denounced as vile and unacceptable if the racial composition of the contenders was reversed. Those who resist this process are tarred as racist and risk having their livelihoods taken away. For some, this has already happened.
Against such threats and official animosity, it is truly remarkable that so many residents of Powell River have pushed back. The citizenry has displayed an impressive level of organization and mustered copious amounts of research in their fight against those intent on ramming through the changing of the name of their beloved city. The actions of the group Concerned Citizens of Powell River, in particular, constitute a spirited and much-needed defence of everyone’s democratic rights. Without the unfettered right to speak one’s mind on the pressing issues of the day, there is no democracy in substance, even if it continues to exist in form.
Finally, and very importantly, there is no question that Indigenous people have been subjected to terrible injustices throughout Canada’s history. But erasing the name of Powell River will do nothing to address those very real problems. Indigenous people throughout this country are suffering in isolated communities with high rates of violence, fetal alcohol syndrome, economic dependency and educational deficiencies. They need emergency interventions and access to high-quality services. But all this is being ignored in favour of changing a historically significant name into a language only five people can read. This isn’t progress. It is the opposite.
Frances Widdowson, PhD, is a political scientist and an expert on Indigenous policy who was fired from Mount Royal University in Calgary for satirizing woke ideas.
Source of main image: Sunshine Coast Tourism/Shayd Johnson.