Petition to have Dallas Brodie removed from office was started by Dorothy Cumming, who has connections to the B.C. NDP party
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A group of about a dozen mostly Vancouver west-side residents officially launched a recall campaign Thursday to oust their elected MLA, Dallas Brodie, saying she wasn’t doing her job and had made offensive comments about Indigenous persons.
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Wearing a “Recall Dallas Brodie” button, Dorothy Cumming, riding constituent and retired nurse, told a news conference in Trafalgar Park in Brodie’s Vancouver-Quilchena riding Thursday that the group wants to force a byelection to elect a new MLA before the next provincial election.
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On May 14, Elections B.C. approved an application to unseat Brodie under a provincial recall law. Canvassers now have to collect more than 15,000 signatures in 60 days.
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Sunrise
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Cumming told the media that constituents weren’t being properly represented in the provincial legislature.
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“I believe that Dallas Brodie is unfit to serve,” she said, reading from a printed page.
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“This recall is not about political positions or party lines, it’s about fitness for public office,” she said, as about a dozen supporters stood behind her.
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She said there were several reasons for the recall, “but today I emphasize her despicable behaviour when she publicly mocked the testimony of Indian residential school survivors on the abuses they endured.”
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“This raises questions about judgment, respect and the ability to represent a diverse community,” she said.
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And Cumming said: “We have seen little engagement in this riding with no focus on local issues, as she is too busy building a party brand,” referring to Brodie’s now-defunct party, OneBC.
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Cumming said Brodie isn’t supporting schools, fixing the “broken” health-care system or addressing the lack of affordable housing.
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She repeated later the recall is non-partisan: “It is not NDP versus Conservative.”
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She called herself the proponent for the recall and said she was “nervous” to do so but wouldn’t say who approached her to be the face of the campaign.
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“I wasn’t approached, I came forward,” she said.
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But she declined to say to whom she volunteered or how the group came about.
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“There was general discussion among people I know that want a recall,” she said.
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As Vancouver Sun columnist Vaughn Palmer wrote this week, there had been some secrecy about the group, with its website claiming it’s a grassroots effort led by constituents. He wrote that B.C. Premier David Eby’s endorsements in November in the legislature of recalls of Brodie and MLA Tara Armstrong, both elected as Tories in 2024, “loom large” over the recall movement. Eby accused both MLAs of promoting an “unambiguously racist” backlash against Indigenous people, which he called disgusting and appalling.
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Brodie was kicked out of the Conservative party last year by then-Leader John Rustad over comments he said were offensive to residential school survivors. She subsequently formed OneBC with Armstrong, who now sits as an Independent after leaving the party.
