Robbins apologizes for 2021 social media comments on residential schools

Spruce Woods Progressive Conservative candidate Colleen Robbins has apologized for comments she made about residential schools more than four years ago.

Robbins, 61, commented on posts that appeared on X, which was then called Twitter, about the actions of people in charge of residential schools.

“I don’t believe for once that any human ever started the residential school to abuse children,” Robbins wrote as a comment in July 2021. “I agree it was what they thought at the time to help the Indigenous, which didn’t happen.”

The comments, along with others about Donald Trump that were posted earlier this year, were forwarded to the Sun by multiple people. Screenshots of Robbins’ comments have also been posted online by supporters of other parties.

On Monday, Robbins apologized for the comments made four years ago.

“I apologize for my ignorance,” she said in an interview with the Sun.

Robbins said she never learned about residential schools while she was in school, and that she thought it was more in line with a regular school when she made the comments.

“I believed — honestly at the time — that they were just like a regular school that people moved to, to be educated,” she said. “But since the truth and reconciliation has come to light, and all of this, we’re all learning and reading about it more and more.

“I just didn’t think that they started it out to be like that,” Robbins added. “But in fact, residential schools were to take the culture out of them, and that is just so wrong in every which way. And I apologize.”

Robbins said she would “absolutely not” have those same beliefs today.

“I definitely was wrong in that belief back then.”

Kelly Saunders, a political science professor at Brandon University, said the optics of this are bad for the PCs.

“I don’t think this is good for the party, because it’s only going to remind Manitobans of the fact that the party has had a troubled record when it comes to Indigenous issues,” she said.

Earlier this year, the PC party apologized for its stance during the 2023 election to not fund the search of a Winnipeg-area landfill for the remains of Indigenous women murdered by a serial killer.

“Those issues have been a bit of an albatross around the party’s neck,” Saunders said. “This statement made by a candidate, even given the fact that it was made a few years ago, this is not the kind of bad press that the party is looking for these days.”

She compared the situation to a court of law, where not knowing that something is illegal doesn’t make it an arguable defence.

Saunders said Robbins’ comments raise questions about her ability to rise to the standard that people have a right to expect from their elected officials.

Robbins also defended comments she made earlier this year regarding U.S. President Donald Trump, when he imposed tariffs on Canada and Mexico, citing drugs going into the U.S. from both countries.

“I am so sorry you have to do this to us … Thought our countries were friends,” she commented in early February.

Phrasing it that way was both sarcastic and a bad choice of words, she clarified on Monday, especially when readers don’t know who she is as a person.

Robbins said she was mad at the American president in that comment.

“Friends don’t put tariffs on or hurt each other,” she said, calling herself a patriotic Canadian. “And I was being sarcastic there. That was not me apologizing for anything.”

She said that comment, along with others regarding U.S. politics, are being taken out of context by the people reposting them.

Robbins said those people are “fear mongering” and running a “smear campaign.”

“Desperate people will do desperate things to try to win, I guess.”

She said she knows that “politics can get ugly,” adding that being a woman makes it even tougher.

Stephen Reid, the Liberal candidate running against Robbins, said Robbins’ comments were “terrible,” but that he hopes she learns from the experience.

“When someone shows you who they are, listen,” he said. “That’s something that people need to keep in mind.”

The Sun reached out to NDP candidate Ray Berthelette, but a campaign manager said he was door-knocking and wasn’t available for a phone interview.

» alambert@brandonsun.com