QUESNEL — 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 BC 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 allegedly 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 BC 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.”
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 was picked up and carried away horizontally by three RCMP officers at the University of British Columbia.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 4, 2026
The Canadian Press
