Kevin Klein, a Winnipeg mayoral candidate whose company owns The Winnipeg Sun, apologized on Monday for a column in the paper questioning the deaths of Indigenous children at Canada’s residential schools.

The day before, he had said he had nothing to do with what the paper prints. The column ran on Oct. 4, four days after the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, and it drew a [formal condemnation](<https://scoinc.mb.ca/statement-from-sco-on-winnipeg-sun-columnists-hate-inducing-prose/>) from the Southern Chiefs’ Organization. The group represents 33 Anishinaabe and Dakota First Nations in Manitoba, and it said it was troubled that the Sun’s chief executive is asking to run the city.

Mr. Klein told reporters on Monday that the column lacked sufficient research and should never have been published. “I wasn’t happy with it. If I had been in charge, I would not have ran that column. I would not have approved that column,” he said before a campaign announcement outside the Granite Curling Club, [CBC News reported](<https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/sco-condemns-winnipeg-sun-mayoral-candidate-ceo-for-column-questioning-deaths-at-residential-schools-9.7369087>).

“But I am not involved in those decisions. So that mistake was made, and it was a mistake,” he said. “I apologize to the Southern Chiefs’ Organization or any member of the community that was offended by that, but that’s not my column. Those are not my words, and I did not approve that.”

The column, headlined “Grave misdirection: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence,” argued that the deaths have been mischaracterized. “Each death is a tragedy, but none is evidence of an atrocity,” it said. Its examples were a child who died of bronchitis and another killed by lightning.

The National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation has documented the deaths of at least 4,200 Indigenous children at the schools over 165 years. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada called the deaths and the widespread abuse in the system cultural genocide.

“Survivors and their families should not be forced, yet again, to prove what happened to them or defend the children who never came home,” Jerry Daniels, the organization’s grand chief, said in a statement. “These are not allegations or political talking points. They are part of Canada’s documented historical record.”

Mr. Daniels said it was “deeply concerning” that someone seeking public office had given a writer a platform to turn residential schools and the deaths of First Nations children into political commentary. “Anyone asking to lead this city has a responsibility to understand the history of residential schools and the ongoing responsibilities of reconciliation,” he said.

As the criticism grew on Sunday, the Sun didn’t back down. Heather Klein, the editor in chief of the Klein Group, which owns the paper, and Mr. Klein’s wife, defended the column in a follow-up piece titled “Disagreement is not denial.”

Her husband issued a statement the same day. “From the day I entered the race for mayor, I stepped away from every editorial decision at the Winnipeg Sun, and I have kept that commitment. The paper stands on its own,” it said. Ms. Klein alone answers for the content, he said, and he does not assign stories, edit copy, or approve or block pieces. “Any suggestion otherwise is reckless and without foundation,” he said.

Sean Carleton, a history professor at the University of Manitoba and a co-author of Truth Before Reconciliation: Confronting Residential School Denialism, called the column disgusting. He said it treated the deaths as less horrific because many children died of disease, malnutrition and neglect rather than murder.

“A lot of people will say, oh, it was just tuberculosis. Lots of kids died of tuberculosis in the early 20th century,” Mr. Carleton said. “That, in fact, is true, except for the fact that, you know what spreads tuberculosis faster? Overcrowding, poor nutrition. Lack of proper sanitation, overwork.”

He called the column “a distraction tactic” that recycles far-right misinformation about First Nations’ claims of mass graves and secret killings, and said church and state records already show “that at least 4,000 children died in these institutions.”

Mr. Klein, a former city councilor, is one of [12 candidates for mayor](<https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/winnipeg-election-2026-nominated-candidates-9.7354585>) in the Oct. 28 election. Two of his rivals went after him. Noah Redden said in a statement that free speech and tolerating hate speech are different things, called residential school denialism inflammatory and said Mr. Klein owed Winnipeg’s Indigenous residents an explanation for why his paper echoed attacks on survivors.

Mayor Scott Gillingham, who is seeking re-election, told reporters on Sunday that he had heard firsthand about the schools from Indigenous families in the city. “What is not deniable in my mind is the impact, the lasting, devastating impact of residential schools on our country,” he said.

In his statement on Sunday, Mr. Klein said Canadians “ought to know what took place in the residential school system.” “As a father and a grandfather, I cannot begin to imagine the pain those families carry,” he said.

Mr. Gillingham attended the holiday’s events on Wednesday in his official capacity. Mr. Klein said on Friday that he hadn’t gone to any of them, though he called the day important.