Content warning: This story contains descriptions of anti-Indigenous racism. Please read with care.
Vancouver Island University (VIU) student journalist Alyona Latsinnik is only in her second year of university, but she scooped everyone with a revealing election night interview with Marina Sapozhnikov, Conservative candidate for Juan de Fuca-Malahat, that exposed the candidate’s harmful and racist views about Indigenous Peoples.
Sapozhnikov was initially only 23 votes short of being elected in the riding. While a recount eventually confirmed Sapozhnikov lost to the BC NDP’s Dana Lajeunesse, Conservative Leader John Rustad later responded to public pressure and said she will not be running for the party again.
During the interview, a copy of which was supplied to The Discourse, Latsinnik said she was taking Indigenous Studies at VIU, and Sapozhnikov asked, “Why?”
When Latsinnik asked what she meant, Sapozhnikov claimed that the university was “rewriting Indigenous history” to “make them some enlightened people” even though “they didn’t have an alphabet.” Indigenous people were “hunters and gatherers,” she added.
All of these claims are racist and false. There are more than 60 distinct Indigenous languages in Canada and Indigenous Peoples developed complex agricultural systems, like clam gardens and fish traps.
Latsinnik replied that Sapozhnikov had a Western-centered point of view and that Indigenous Peoples had sophisticated systems of law.
Sapozhnikov cut her off and interjected: “They teach you this stuff, it’s not true” and that it was part of a “woke agenda.”
“Oh my god, they teach you all this bullshit,” Sapozhnikov added. “They didn’t have any sophisticated laws, they were savages, they fought each other all the time.”
Latsinnik, who moved from Russia near the border of Ukraine to Canada as a teenager when the war there broke out in 2014, pointed out that Europeans also fought each other all the time.
Sapozhnikov said that was true, but that Europeans brought science to Indigenous Peoples. “Now they teach you some kind of Indigenous knowledge. What is Indigenous knowledge?”
“They’re brainwashing you,” she told Latsinnik. “They’re doing a very good job.”
Challenged by Latsinnik on her comment about Indigenous Peoples being “savages” Sapozhnikov said that they were not “100 per cent savages, maybe 90 per cent savages. They didn’t have science, they didn’t have a wheel.”
The next morning, Latsinnik emailed her journalism professor Stephen Hume telling him that she thought she had a “huge story” that went well beyond a class assignment.
Hume, who has worked in journalism for 55 years, asked her if she had the interview on tape and to send him a transcript.
“You’ve got one heck of a story here,” he told her after checking the transcript. “Go away and write it.”
Latsinnik submitted it ahead of her deadline and Hume asked her if she wanted to get the story out.
“She was originally thinking about taking it to community paper, and I said, ‘Hey, with a story this good, you want to start at the top’” and put her in touch with colleagues at the Vancouver Sun.
“This is Alyona’s story,” he told The Discourse. “Boy, she got the story, and then she ran with it.”
Hume said that Latsinnik handled the interview well.
“She just asked questions and then towards the end she sort of got into it with her over some of this stuff, but she gave [Sapozhnikov] enough rope to do it herself, which is what I would expect a real pro to do,” he said.
On Friday, Oct. 25 the Vancouver Sun ran a story based on Latsinnik’s reporting that blew up, provoking calls from Tsilhqot’in Chiefs, the First Nations Leadership Council and the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs for Conservative Leader John Rustad to remove Sapozhnikov as a Conservative candidate. At the time, the NDP held a scant one-seat lead.
Rustad told the Vancouver Sun that Sapozhnikov’s “remarks do not reflect the values of our party or the vision we have for a united British Columbia, and we are taking this matter seriously” but made no indication that he would remove her from the Conservative caucus if she was elected.
It was only after the final count and recount in the riding was over, with Sapozhnikov finishing 141 votes behind the NDP’s Dana Lajeunesse, that Rustad told Vancouver Sun reporters she would not be allowed to run for the party in the future.
During the election campaign, some First Nations leaders denounced the Conservative Party platform for committing to dismantle B.C.’s Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act and streamline resource project permitting.
A series of other Conservative candidates, some of whom were elected, were exposed for racist comments during the campaign including Vancouver-Quilchena MLA-elect Dallas Brodie, Prince George-North Cariboo MLA-elect Sheldon Clare and Surrey South MLA-elect Brent Chapman.
Hume points to the importance of local journalism in reporting on these stories and says that a lot of politicians are operating in “news deserts” where community newspapers have closed and some of the newer online outlets just “don’t have the staff” to go out and ask questions of all local candidates.
Latsinnik originally wasn’t even going to go to the Conservative candidate’s election night party. She was planning to attend the election night event by Green Party Leader Sonia Fursteanu in Victoria but made a last-minute decision to go to a small party hosted by a Conservative Party volunteer in Mill Bay instead because she didn’t want to drive over the Malahat in the heavy rain.
As for the story Latsinnik wrote, she is currently working to get it published with The Navigator student newspaper at VIU. She says her story will be different from what has already been published and will include voices from local Indigenous leaders and an academic expert in Indigenous knowledge.
Latsinnik said that, for the most part, the feedback she’s received has been positive but one Conservative supporter alleged she was a “paid actor” online.
“It’s really unfortunate, but I’m not the one who made Marina share those opinions. She knew that she was being recorded,” Latsinnik said “She even said things like ‘I dare you to publish this.’”
Latsinnik told The Discourse that the experience has made her want to do more journalism and that she appreciates the freedom that journalists in Canada have.
“A lot of journalists are killed in the war back home, and a lot of people who are fighting for freedom in Ukraine are dying,” she said. “So I feel very fortunate to be here. A lot of people in Russia who want to bring the truth and go against the government are dying or disappearing.”
She said that if she had stayed in Russia she would never be able to do journalism because all independent media have been shut down. Even calling the war in Ukraine a “war” was forbidden until recently under Russia’s fake news law, she added, and journalists in Russia had to call it a “special military operation” or risk arrest and imprisonment.
“I’m just feeling very grateful that here I’m able to meet with people from the government and see what they’ve got to say… and that I can feel safe putting my name out there.
“But I think journalism is a risky job, there’s many people who are not going to like what you have to say or publish and that’s just the way it is.”
