Juno News - December 03, 2025Professor ARRESTED for pushing back against unmarked graves narrative
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Summary
Free speech under attack again in Canada. University professor Frances Whittowson was detained by police at the University of Victoria. The CEO of Algoma Steel says the federal government knew of his plans to lay off workers before the government gave that company a massive loan.
Transcript
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Free speech under attack again in Canada. University professor Frances Whittowson was
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detained by police at the University of Victoria. As reported by Juneau News, she was speaking to
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students. I understand that. I think that the University of Victoria is in violation of the
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Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the ability of ordinary citizens to come and have discussions with
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who ever exist in that public space. And I'm not holding an event. People have been saying I'm
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holding some kind of event. I'm not. I'm just coming here to talk to students, faculty, and members of
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the public about the false claim that the University of Victoria has been spreading for the last four
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and a half years. It's a publicly funded institution. It should not be able to control information.
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Whittowson was later released and issued a citation under the Provincial Trespass Act.
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She was wearing a sandwich board at the time of the arrest that read Denial or Truth, What Remains?
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She is the author of Dead Wrong, How Canada Got the Residential School Story So Wrong, a book that
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exposes the unfounded claims about buried bodies at a former residential school in Cambridge, British
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Columbia. She'll be our guest on this show just a few minutes from now. The CEO of Algoma Steel says
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the federal government knew of his plans to lay off workers before the government gave that company
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a massive loan. This headline from CTV, Algoma Steel's CEO, Feds knew about plans for layoffs before
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giving $400 million loan. The company then got another $100 million from the province of Ontario.
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The terms of the loan apparently did not include protecting jobs. Let's listen.
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Did the governments know that these layoffs were in the cards before they agreed to these
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loans to your company? Well, I think the government certainly knows our business strategy. It knows
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the pivot that we had made. It knew very well that the extreme pressure the company was under. I don't
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think anybody would loan the company half a billion dollars without asking very detailed questions about
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what our business plan was. This week, the company announced it's laying off a thousand steel
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workers. Industry Minister Melanie Jolie says the blame rests with the Trump administration.
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We know that the entire steel sector in Canada has been mostly organized over supporting the U.S.
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automakers and their business model. And because of the unjustified and unjustifiable American
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tariffs, which are at 50%, our steel sector is not able to send steel on the other side of the board
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to these U.S. automakers. And that is why we've provided this fall $400 million to the company,
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and Ontario also provided $100 million. And the goal was to make sure that the company would get through
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these months while they were working on pivoting and adapting their entire operations.
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And then they laid off a thousand people. CEO Michael Garcia said that the industrial carbon tax was
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not a factor in the layoff decision, but doesn't want to see it go up anytime soon. Well, you don't see
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this every day. The prime minister left in the middle of question period as he was being questioned
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about home construction. The Honourable, the Honourable Leader of the Opposition.
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Mr. Speaker, you can't build homes if you run out of the house. Mr. Speaker, it's very sad the prime minister
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does not want to debate how we get homes for our youth. Our young people deserve homes, jobs, and hope. He was
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feeling very cocky a few minutes ago until he worried that I might present him with the facts.
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Now, the PM did have another event to attend, but he could easily have waited until after the question
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was asked. Instead, he chose to head for the exits rather than deal with a question that maybe he didn't
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have an answer for. I'm now joined by Professor Frances Widdowson of Mount Royal University.
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She is contributing author of Dead Wrong, How Canada Got the Residential School Story So Wrong.
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Welcome to the show, Professor. Thanks for having me on.
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Talk about what happened with the arrest. Yes, it was a wild time. So I was coming on with my
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billboards, which say, what remains, ask what remains, and the 215, every child matters, and then
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the back one, which is denial or truth with the sign that Dallas Brody was holding up zero bodies in
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front of the billboard, basically misinforming people that 215 bodies had been found at Kamloops.
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And I had been given an email by University of Victoria the day before saying that I couldn't come
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because I had an unauthorized event. But it wasn't an event. I was just there with my billboard wanting
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to, you know, ask questions and have questions asked about my position. And then when I walked in with my
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billboards and with Dallas Brody and Jim McMurtry, we were met by quite a few police officers who told us
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that we were not welcome on campus and that we would need to leave. And I said that I would not be
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I would not be leaving. I would be staying here to get to do this question and answer. And then the
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UVic safety person came up and gave me a notice that I was restricted from campus. And and then the
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police escorted me to the police cruiser. And I was taken off to jail.
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It wasn't that long. It was about an hour, I guess. Like I'd like to say that I was,
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you know, I had some terrible things done to me, but it was all very tame. It was not there was no
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problem. It was just kind of the the fact that I was arrested for just wanting to have a discussion
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with students, faculty and members of the community. And then all sorts of assaults and
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horrible, horrendous behavior happened after I wasn't there to witness it. But I've seen the footage
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now. And the police did nothing and arrested none of the people who were engaged in all these sorts of
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very, very violent and disruptive acts. That's kind of the shocking part of the whole thing.
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Well, after seeing Charlie Kirk get shot for basically doing the same thing you were doing was just
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talking to students, maybe you got off a little easy compared to him. But most of the media is
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reporting that it was an event that you were holding an event. I mean, I guess your mere appearance at the
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university qualifies as an event. Maybe you could comment on that.
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Well, everyone organized a protest in response to it. So they were organizing a large gathering with
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megaphones and all sorts of, you know, things that accoutrements, drums and etc. So theirs is the big
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event on campus. It would be interesting to know whether they receive the appropriate permits and so on.
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But yeah, that's basically it. And it's kind of amusing because the whole idea is that about the
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safety issue is my presence there causes all these violent things to happen. Therefore, I should be
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banned. But I was actually taken away and removed. And that didn't matter. The violence and everything
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happened anyway, because anyone who was there to actually just have a question and answer exchange,
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were there was a mob that was actively hunting them down on campus. So this was a real wake up call
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again. Well, University of Winnipeg, of course, which was a far worse and much more dangerous situation,
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because the police did not even come to that event, even though they were called six times by six
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different people. You know, we have a serious problem on university campuses that has to be dealt
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with. You cannot pander to this, or it's just going to get people emboldened and it's going to become
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worse. So there needs to be a nationwide understanding of the gangsterism and threats and general just
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horrendous behavior that is occurring at the hands of these activists.
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It makes you wonder how brainwashed these students are to react in the way that they are reacting,
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where, you know, you can't even have a friendly conversation with somebody without violence
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Yes. And UVic is one of the worst perpetrators of the indoctrination that is happening on campuses.
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And I'll just mention one example, which is the library, the UVic library, the McPherson library,
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has a web page on residential school denialism, which has been funded through the university's budget
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and is put together by a supposed librarian by the name of Justin Harrison,
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who is basically saying you cannot question the stories that the elders tell.
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And if you do, this is just a horrendous thing to do, and that should not be allowed at a university.
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So that's the kind of quote unquote information that the University of Victoria is putting out
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Wild. Can you sum up your position on the residential school so far?
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Well, my main issue now is the Kamloops case. That's really all I'm trying to get across,
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which is that there is no evidence for the remains of 215 children being buried at the Kamloops Indian
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residential school. And in fact, if we're going to talk about the anomalies that they claim are probable
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burials, it's 200 because 15 of the 215 were previously excavated by the Simon Fraser archaeology
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department and no remains were found. But it's extremely unlikely that there are any remains
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at the Kamloops Indian residential school because not one parent has said that their child never came home
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from that school. And if that's the case, who are the 200 bodies that are buried clandestinely in that apple orchard?
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And these are the questions that you were raising with the students when you were chatting with them?
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Well, I never got a chance to chat. At Thompson Rivers, we went to Thompson Rivers University.
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They served us with a trespass notice there. We said, we're not leaving. And then the bureaucrats just
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stood back and watched. And we had a great event because there was the temper tantrums of the drumming
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and so on that went on. And as Super Nanny says, you cannot allow the toddlers to get away with their tantrums.
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So you just stick it out until they get tired. And then we had a great event of about an hour long discussions
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with students where we just, you know, many, many came to the conclusion that it's true that there really is no
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evidence for the remains of children at the Kamloops Indian residential school.
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And yet when you say that to people, including students, what's their reaction?
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Well, the activists get very upset and start yelling and calling you all sorts of names that
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you're a horrible person for doing this. So that's kind of the one segment, but that's not
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the majority of the people at the university. There is a large number of people who just don't know what
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to think about it. And because they've been fed all these, this propaganda by the university
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administration, why wouldn't you believe that that 215 children were buried in the apple orchard?
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Because that's what the administration is saying is the case. So all those administrators need to
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retract all the misinformation that they've been spreading for the last four and a half years.
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Yeah, unfortunately, that misinformation tends to, you know, gather momentum, and then morph into
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what everybody thinks is consensus. And really, so much of this began with Justin Trudeau. And we also
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remember the photo op that he had, you know, by the grave with the teddy bear, you know, all the
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the plenient pictures that we saw. Then the flag was put down to half mast, I think for six months,
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some outrageous length of time. This was before the facts had emerged, but they immediately jumped
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to conclusions about what was there and who was responsible. And then, of course, we had all those
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church burnings. And, you know, under the guise of being understandable, as certain members of the
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liberal government at the time suggested that the attacks on these Christian facilities was,
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you know, that's where it kind of began gathering momentum. I realized that it was discussed,
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and you pointed this out beforehand, that this kind of discussions around what was there
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had happened years earlier. But would you agree that that served as a major impetus
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for the kind of misinformation that now seems widespread?
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Well, Trudeau definitely was involved, but all the political parties are implicated in this
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situation. We've had, you know, press conferences where all the political leadership stood up and said
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this was terrible. No one, as far as I know, has really come out strongly saying we need a reckoning,
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and the truth must be told about this. And then we had, of course, in 2022, when the entire House of
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Commons said that Canada was a genocidal country. And that was prompted by the false claim that was made
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by the Kamloops Indian Band on May 27, 2021. So we really need all politicians now to stand up and say,
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we got carried away, we made a mistake, but there is no evidence of this being the case. And in addition
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to that, the Kamloops Indian Band has received $12.1 million to do the excavations. They have not
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done the excavations in spite of saying in January 2022 that the 13 family heads had agreed to do the
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excavations so they could, quote, send the children home, unquote. But in order to know that there's
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children there buried, we first have to have excavations to make that determination. And that
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has to be done. There has to be accountability. You can't just have groups taking public funds
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excavations and not spending them that funding for what that funding was intended for.
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Well, if they do the excavations and find nothing,
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then there's going to be a demand for answers. And there's going to be a lot of people with egg on their
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face. Maybe that's why they're dragging their heels as far as doing the excavation. What do you think?
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I think that's definitely the case. And I have heard from whistleblowers in the Kamloops Indian Band
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that the band knows it's made a mistake and does not want to have a reckoning about that.
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But they have put the country into turmoil because of the false claim that they made. And they must be
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held to account just like any other group, any other person in Canada. We must have truth about Kamloops.
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If we can't get to the truth about Kamloops, it means us as a society really cannot pursue things to their
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actual endpoint because of political sensitivities, which this has gone far, far beyond sensitivity.
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And we need to have a reckoning on this claim. And then of course, there's the money. I mean,
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where's the money? The checks have already been written. It was supposed to have been used for the
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excavations. And who's got that money now? Where is it? Is this some bank account somewhere?
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The Blackhawks reporter did a report on this. And there was all these documents. I think it was
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about 280 pages. When you look through those documents, it's all redacted. So that's the
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other thing. Why are these documents redacted? We should get them in their unredacted form.
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But they found just like piecing together all the details that the money went to consultants and
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publicists who are the PR machine behind the Kamloops Indian Band. And this is the Aboriginal industry
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at work, which is siphoning billions of dollars away from the much needed services that are needed in
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I mean, if there were bodies there, you would think that the natives, the Aboriginals involved,
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you know, would be in a big hurry to start excavating and discovering the bodies and examining those
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bodies so that they could then proceed to the next stage, which presumably would be a demand for
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reparations. And yet this is just has been going nowhere. It's been dragging their heels. So it really
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makes you suspicious of this whole thing. Very suspicious. And if there are bodies that are
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buried there, they're buried clandestinely. It's not a cemetery. There's a number of cases where you
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have abandoned cemeteries where the grave markers were initially marked and then the grave markers
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deteriorated. That's not the case with Kamloops because there is a cemetery across from the Catholic
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Church on the Kamloops Reserve. So if they are clandestine burials, that means that there were
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perpetrators that buried those bodies secretly. And if we're going to hold those perpetrators to account,
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we're going to need excavation. So to find the remains and determine the cause of death and all
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those kinds of questions that need to be determined in these cases.
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I mean, we need to get to the bottom of this. You know, the reputation of the country
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has been besmirched and the Liberals don't seem to be in a big, the government doesn't seem to be in a
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big hurry to get to the bottom of it either. And so in the meantime, you know, Canada's reputation as
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being this great country, you know, the human rights, you know, beacon of the world or one of them,
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you know, has all been now put under a cloud because of allegations that we are a genocidal nation.
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I mean, this needs to be, the record needs to be corrected.
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And the genocide, the claim of genocide, wasn't really taken that seriously before 2021 when we
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heard about these 215 children, some as young as three years old, that were buried at this site.
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So once we take away that claim and realize that it was a false claim, then what you have is really
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cultural genocide. And cultural genocide has never been recognized as part of the UN's definition of
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genocide. So we need to have the discussion about whether Canada is a genocidal country. Unfortunately,
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because of all the emerging authoritarianism, there's attempts by people like Leah Gazan,
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the MP from Winnipeg Center, to criminalize discussions about this subject. And this is
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just going to be a complete disaster if people are taking that seriously, that you should criminalize
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critically examining claims, which appear to be highly dubious on their face.
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Yeah. And the free speech now issue looming huge. Of course, that's really what happened to you,
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is your free speech has been attacked. Your rights speak your mind in an open venue. I mean,
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that's what's under attack here. And why do you think the government seems so adamant to shut you up?
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They can't handle the truth. The truth, you know, I, what I'm saying, I think there's a lot of
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evidentiary weight behind the arguments that I put forward. And that's very threatening to the
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aboriginal industry, which has basically taken over large segments of our institutions. And we need to
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restore enlightenment values, democratic principles. And the truth is a huge threat to the people who are
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I guess you were handed a citation, was it a violation of trespass?
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Under the trespass. Are you going to fight that? Or are you going to?
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Oh, yes. We're going to fight that as hard as we can, and we'll go as far as we can with it.
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It's a, it's $115 fine. It was, it was, I'm just trying to remember what the actual
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violation was. But it's, I've just been talking to the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms,
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my lawyer, Glenn Blackett, we're getting the paperwork together to fight this on a number of
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different levels, because it appears that University of Victoria's policies are incredibly broad,
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which of course allows for the kind of abuse of power that we saw yesterday on the University of
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Victoria campus. So it's going to be challenged on a number of, a number of levels.
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Yeah. Well, they say you held an event and all you did was show up. And I guess
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the university will be making a case that, you know, by virtue of stepping foot on the campus,
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And does that make, like, is it, should you have to get a permit
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to come on campus just to talk to people? Like these are publicly funded institutions.
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University of Victoria is saying this is private property.
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It's not private property. It's public property. Now, I understand with the booking of rooms and so
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on, you can't just have university rooms taken over by, you know, whatever person wants to say,
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you know, anything. But in a wide open space where you can just go around the corner and if you're
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blocking a doorway or something, you can just move and have the discussion in, you know, 10,
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20, 50 feet away, the university is going to be in charge of what people can come and what
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conversations can occur. Is this what we're talking about?
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Craziness. Professor, thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate that.
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Thanks for having me on. Professor Frances Widowson. She is with
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Mount Royal University and contributing author of Dead Wrong, How Canada Got
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the Residential School Story So Wrong. Thank you so much for tuning in to this edition of the show.
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We'll do it again real soon, shall we? Bye-bye for now.