Juno News - Professor ARRESTED for pushing back against unmarked graves narrative

00:00:00.000 Free speech under attack again in Canada. University professor Frances Whittowson was

00:00:10.300 detained by police at the University of Victoria. As reported by Juneau News, she was speaking to

00:00:16.680 students. I understand that. I think that the University of Victoria is in violation of the

00:00:21.980 Charter of Rights and Freedoms and the ability of ordinary citizens to come and have discussions with

00:00:27.640 who ever exist in that public space. And I'm not holding an event. People have been saying I'm

00:00:33.240 holding some kind of event. I'm not. I'm just coming here to talk to students, faculty, and members of

00:00:38.100 the public about the false claim that the University of Victoria has been spreading for the last four

00:00:43.080 and a half years. It's a publicly funded institution. It should not be able to control information.

00:00:50.000 Whittowson was later released and issued a citation under the Provincial Trespass Act.

00:00:54.760 She was wearing a sandwich board at the time of the arrest that read Denial or Truth, What Remains?

00:01:02.360 She is the author of Dead Wrong, How Canada Got the Residential School Story So Wrong, a book that

00:01:08.500 exposes the unfounded claims about buried bodies at a former residential school in Cambridge, British

00:01:14.760 Columbia. She'll be our guest on this show just a few minutes from now. The CEO of Algoma Steel says

00:01:22.340 the federal government knew of his plans to lay off workers before the government gave that company

00:01:28.640 a massive loan. This headline from CTV, Algoma Steel's CEO, Feds knew about plans for layoffs before

00:01:37.220 giving $400 million loan. The company then got another $100 million from the province of Ontario.

00:01:44.120 The terms of the loan apparently did not include protecting jobs. Let's listen.

00:01:48.080 Did the governments know that these layoffs were in the cards before they agreed to these

00:01:55.240 loans to your company? Well, I think the government certainly knows our business strategy. It knows

00:02:00.400 the pivot that we had made. It knew very well that the extreme pressure the company was under. I don't

00:02:06.960 think anybody would loan the company half a billion dollars without asking very detailed questions about

00:02:14.740 what our business plan was. This week, the company announced it's laying off a thousand steel

00:02:19.900 workers. Industry Minister Melanie Jolie says the blame rests with the Trump administration.

00:02:25.400 We know that the entire steel sector in Canada has been mostly organized over supporting the U.S.

00:02:34.580 automakers and their business model. And because of the unjustified and unjustifiable American 0.99

00:02:41.660 tariffs, which are at 50%, our steel sector is not able to send steel on the other side of the board

00:02:50.940 to these U.S. automakers. And that is why we've provided this fall $400 million to the company,

00:02:59.820 and Ontario also provided $100 million. And the goal was to make sure that the company would get through

00:03:06.600 these months while they were working on pivoting and adapting their entire operations.

00:03:12.340 And then they laid off a thousand people. CEO Michael Garcia said that the industrial carbon tax was

00:03:19.020 not a factor in the layoff decision, but doesn't want to see it go up anytime soon. Well, you don't see

00:03:25.780 this every day. The prime minister left in the middle of question period as he was being questioned

00:03:31.140 about home construction. The Honourable, the Honourable Leader of the Opposition.

00:03:38.740 Mr. Speaker, you can't build homes if you run out of the house. Mr. Speaker, it's very sad the prime minister

00:03:48.420 does not want to debate how we get homes for our youth. Our young people deserve homes, jobs, and hope. He was

00:03:54.820 feeling very cocky a few minutes ago until he worried that I might present him with the facts.

00:04:00.280 Now, the PM did have another event to attend, but he could easily have waited until after the question

00:04:05.280 was asked. Instead, he chose to head for the exits rather than deal with a question that maybe he didn't

00:04:11.760 have an answer for. I'm now joined by Professor Frances Widdowson of Mount Royal University.

00:04:17.960 She is contributing author of Dead Wrong, How Canada Got the Residential School Story So Wrong.

00:04:23.380 Welcome to the show, Professor. Thanks for having me on.

00:04:27.960 Talk about what happened with the arrest. Yes, it was a wild time. So I was coming on with my

00:04:39.520 billboards, which say, what remains, ask what remains, and the 215, every child matters, and then

00:04:46.200 the back one, which is denial or truth with the sign that Dallas Brody was holding up zero bodies in

00:04:54.740 front of the billboard, basically misinforming people that 215 bodies had been found at Kamloops.

00:05:02.140 And I had been given an email by University of Victoria the day before saying that I couldn't come

00:05:08.900 because I had an unauthorized event. But it wasn't an event. I was just there with my billboard wanting

00:05:14.980 to, you know, ask questions and have questions asked about my position. And then when I walked in with my

00:05:21.500 billboards and with Dallas Brody and Jim McMurtry, we were met by quite a few police officers who told us

00:05:30.400 that we were not welcome on campus and that we would need to leave. And I said that I would not be

00:05:37.060 I would not be leaving. I would be staying here to get to do this question and answer. And then the

00:05:43.620 UVic safety person came up and gave me a notice that I was restricted from campus. And and then the

00:05:52.060 police escorted me to the police cruiser. And I was taken off to jail.

00:05:59.840 Wow. How long did you spend in jail?

00:06:03.000 It wasn't that long. It was about an hour, I guess. Like I'd like to say that I was,

00:06:08.160 you know, I had some terrible things done to me, but it was all very tame. It was not there was no

00:06:13.940 problem. It was just kind of the the fact that I was arrested for just wanting to have a discussion

00:06:20.760 with students, faculty and members of the community. And then all sorts of assaults and

00:06:26.580 horrible, horrendous behavior happened after I wasn't there to witness it. But I've seen the footage

00:06:32.860 now. And the police did nothing and arrested none of the people who were engaged in all these sorts of

00:06:39.840 very, very violent and disruptive acts. That's kind of the shocking part of the whole thing.

00:06:45.320 Well, after seeing Charlie Kirk get shot for basically doing the same thing you were doing was just

00:06:51.040 talking to students, maybe you got off a little easy compared to him. But most of the media is

00:06:58.140 reporting that it was an event that you were holding an event. I mean, I guess your mere appearance at the

00:07:04.440 university qualifies as an event. Maybe you could comment on that.

00:07:08.940 Well, everyone organized a protest in response to it. So they were organizing a large gathering with

00:07:19.560 megaphones and all sorts of, you know, things that accoutrements, drums and etc. So theirs is the big

00:07:30.540 event on campus. It would be interesting to know whether they receive the appropriate permits and so on.

00:07:38.720 But yeah, that's basically it. And it's kind of amusing because the whole idea is that about the

00:07:43.940 safety issue is my presence there causes all these violent things to happen. Therefore, I should be

00:07:51.760 banned. But I was actually taken away and removed. And that didn't matter. The violence and everything

00:07:59.640 happened anyway, because anyone who was there to actually just have a question and answer exchange,

00:08:06.220 were there was a mob that was actively hunting them down on campus. So this was a real wake up call

00:08:15.200 again. Well, University of Winnipeg, of course, which was a far worse and much more dangerous situation,

00:08:20.740 because the police did not even come to that event, even though they were called six times by six

00:08:27.000 different people. You know, we have a serious problem on university campuses that has to be dealt

00:08:34.020 with. You cannot pander to this, or it's just going to get people emboldened and it's going to become

00:08:39.980 worse. So there needs to be a nationwide understanding of the gangsterism and threats and general just

00:08:49.680 horrendous behavior that is occurring at the hands of these activists.

00:08:54.660 It makes you wonder how brainwashed these students are to react in the way that they are reacting,

00:09:00.900 where, you know, you can't even have a friendly conversation with somebody without violence

00:09:06.960 happening. It's extremely disturbing.

00:09:09.660 Yes. And UVic is one of the worst perpetrators of the indoctrination that is happening on campuses.

00:09:17.640 And I'll just mention one example, which is the library, the UVic library, the McPherson library,

00:09:23.440 has a web page on residential school denialism, which has been funded through the university's budget

00:09:31.740 and is put together by a supposed librarian by the name of Justin Harrison,

00:09:37.760 who is basically saying you cannot question the stories that the elders tell.

00:09:44.000 And if you do, this is just a horrendous thing to do, and that should not be allowed at a university.

00:09:50.360 So that's the kind of quote unquote information that the University of Victoria is putting out

00:09:56.780 to its students and faculty.

00:10:00.580 Wild. Can you sum up your position on the residential school so far?

00:10:06.520 Well, my main issue now is the Kamloops case. That's really all I'm trying to get across,

00:10:21.700 which is that there is no evidence for the remains of 215 children being buried at the Kamloops Indian

00:10:30.020 residential school. And in fact, if we're going to talk about the anomalies that they claim are probable

00:10:35.200 burials, it's 200 because 15 of the 215 were previously excavated by the Simon Fraser archaeology

00:10:44.560 department and no remains were found. But it's extremely unlikely that there are any remains

00:10:51.440 at the Kamloops Indian residential school because not one parent has said that their child never came home

00:10:58.400 from that school. And if that's the case, who are the 200 bodies that are buried clandestinely in that apple orchard?

00:11:07.760 And these are the questions that you were raising with the students when you were chatting with them?

00:11:14.980 Well, I never got a chance to chat. At Thompson Rivers, we went to Thompson Rivers University.

00:11:20.580 They served us with a trespass notice there. We said, we're not leaving. And then the bureaucrats just

00:11:28.340 stood back and watched. And we had a great event because there was the temper tantrums of the drumming

00:11:33.920 and so on that went on. And as Super Nanny says, you cannot allow the toddlers to get away with their tantrums. 1.00

00:11:41.440 So you just stick it out until they get tired. And then we had a great event of about an hour long discussions

00:11:48.940 with students where we just, you know, many, many came to the conclusion that it's true that there really is no

00:11:57.260 evidence for the remains of children at the Kamloops Indian residential school.

00:12:02.700 And yet when you say that to people, including students, what's their reaction?

00:12:07.600 Well, the activists get very upset and start yelling and calling you all sorts of names that

00:12:16.060 you're a horrible person for doing this. So that's kind of the one segment, but that's not

00:12:20.880 the majority of the people at the university. There is a large number of people who just don't know what

00:12:27.480 to think about it. And because they've been fed all these, this propaganda by the university

00:12:33.100 administration, why wouldn't you believe that that 215 children were buried in the apple orchard?

00:12:39.580 Because that's what the administration is saying is the case. So all those administrators need to

00:12:45.500 retract all the misinformation that they've been spreading for the last four and a half years.

00:12:51.100 Yeah, unfortunately, that misinformation tends to, you know, gather momentum, and then morph into

00:12:59.580 what everybody thinks is consensus. And really, so much of this began with Justin Trudeau. And we also

00:13:06.380 remember the photo op that he had, you know, by the grave with the teddy bear, you know, all the

00:13:12.780 the plenient pictures that we saw. Then the flag was put down to half mast, I think for six months,

00:13:21.420 some outrageous length of time. This was before the facts had emerged, but they immediately jumped

00:13:27.180 to conclusions about what was there and who was responsible. And then, of course, we had all those

00:13:33.340 church burnings. And, you know, under the guise of being understandable, as certain members of the

00:13:40.140 liberal government at the time suggested that the attacks on these Christian facilities was,

00:13:46.860 you know, that's where it kind of began gathering momentum. I realized that it was discussed,

00:13:52.700 and you pointed this out beforehand, that this kind of discussions around what was there

00:13:57.260 had happened years earlier. But would you agree that that served as a major impetus

00:14:04.140 for the kind of misinformation that now seems widespread?

00:14:09.020 Well, Trudeau definitely was involved, but all the political parties are implicated in this

00:14:16.380 situation. We've had, you know, press conferences where all the political leadership stood up and said

00:14:24.220 this was terrible. No one, as far as I know, has really come out strongly saying we need a reckoning,

00:14:31.100 and the truth must be told about this. And then we had, of course, in 2022, when the entire House of

00:14:39.580 Commons said that Canada was a genocidal country. And that was prompted by the false claim that was made

00:14:48.860 by the Kamloops Indian Band on May 27, 2021. So we really need all politicians now to stand up and say,

00:14:57.980 we got carried away, we made a mistake, but there is no evidence of this being the case. And in addition

00:15:06.700 to that, the Kamloops Indian Band has received $12.1 million to do the excavations. They have not

00:15:13.980 done the excavations in spite of saying in January 2022 that the 13 family heads had agreed to do the

00:15:22.380 excavations so they could, quote, send the children home, unquote. But in order to know that there's

00:15:29.260 children there buried, we first have to have excavations to make that determination. And that

00:15:36.060 has to be done. There has to be accountability. You can't just have groups taking public funds

00:15:43.420 excavations and not spending them that funding for what that funding was intended for.

00:15:49.180 Well, if they do the excavations and find nothing,

00:15:52.700 then there's going to be a demand for answers. And there's going to be a lot of people with egg on their

00:15:56.940 face. Maybe that's why they're dragging their heels as far as doing the excavation. What do you think?

00:16:02.300 I think that's definitely the case. And I have heard from whistleblowers in the Kamloops Indian Band

00:16:07.900 that the band knows it's made a mistake and does not want to have a reckoning about that.

00:16:12.780 But they have put the country into turmoil because of the false claim that they made. And they must be

00:16:20.060 held to account just like any other group, any other person in Canada. We must have truth about Kamloops.

00:16:27.660 If we can't get to the truth about Kamloops, it means us as a society really cannot pursue things to their

00:16:36.460 actual endpoint because of political sensitivities, which this has gone far, far beyond sensitivity.

00:16:44.860 And we need to have a reckoning on this claim. And then of course, there's the money. I mean,

00:16:50.460 where's the money? The checks have already been written. It was supposed to have been used for the

00:16:57.020 excavations. And who's got that money now? Where is it? Is this some bank account somewhere?

00:17:03.820 The Blackhawks reporter did a report on this. And there was all these documents. I think it was

00:17:08.700 about 280 pages. When you look through those documents, it's all redacted. So that's the

00:17:14.540 other thing. Why are these documents redacted? We should get them in their unredacted form.

00:17:20.860 But they found just like piecing together all the details that the money went to consultants and

00:17:27.900 publicists who are the PR machine behind the Kamloops Indian Band. And this is the Aboriginal industry 1.00

00:17:35.260 at work, which is siphoning billions of dollars away from the much needed services that are needed in

00:17:42.860 Aboriginal communities.

00:17:44.460 I mean, if there were bodies there, you would think that the natives, the Aboriginals involved,

00:17:51.340 you know, would be in a big hurry to start excavating and discovering the bodies and examining those

00:17:56.940 bodies so that they could then proceed to the next stage, which presumably would be a demand for

00:18:01.740 reparations. And yet this is just has been going nowhere. It's been dragging their heels. So it really

00:18:08.220 makes you suspicious of this whole thing. Very suspicious. And if there are bodies that are

00:18:16.220 buried there, they're buried clandestinely. It's not a cemetery. There's a number of cases where you

00:18:21.580 have abandoned cemeteries where the grave markers were initially marked and then the grave markers

00:18:28.540 deteriorated. That's not the case with Kamloops because there is a cemetery across from the Catholic

00:18:34.380 Church on the Kamloops Reserve. So if they are clandestine burials, that means that there were

00:18:41.340 perpetrators that buried those bodies secretly. And if we're going to hold those perpetrators to account,

00:18:49.580 we're going to need excavation. So to find the remains and determine the cause of death and all

00:18:55.180 those kinds of questions that need to be determined in these cases.

00:19:00.220 I mean, we need to get to the bottom of this. You know, the reputation of the country

00:19:06.540 has been besmirched and the Liberals don't seem to be in a big, the government doesn't seem to be in a

00:19:12.460 big hurry to get to the bottom of it either. And so in the meantime, you know, Canada's reputation as

00:19:19.020 being this great country, you know, the human rights, you know, beacon of the world or one of them,

00:19:25.580 you know, has all been now put under a cloud because of allegations that we are a genocidal nation.

00:19:35.260 I mean, this needs to be, the record needs to be corrected.

00:19:39.740 Agreed?

00:19:40.540 And the genocide, the claim of genocide, wasn't really taken that seriously before 2021 when we

00:19:49.580 heard about these 215 children, some as young as three years old, that were buried at this site.

00:19:56.860 So once we take away that claim and realize that it was a false claim, then what you have is really

00:20:03.820 cultural genocide. And cultural genocide has never been recognized as part of the UN's definition of

00:20:11.580 genocide. So we need to have the discussion about whether Canada is a genocidal country. Unfortunately,

00:20:21.020 because of all the emerging authoritarianism, there's attempts by people like Leah Gazan,

00:20:28.060 the MP from Winnipeg Center, to criminalize discussions about this subject. And this is

00:20:36.300 just going to be a complete disaster if people are taking that seriously, that you should criminalize

00:20:43.260 critically examining claims, which appear to be highly dubious on their face.

00:20:50.140 Yeah. And the free speech now issue looming huge. Of course, that's really what happened to you,

00:20:57.660 is your free speech has been attacked. Your rights speak your mind in an open venue. I mean,

00:21:05.260 that's what's under attack here. And why do you think the government seems so adamant to shut you up?

00:21:11.900 They can't handle the truth. The truth, you know, I, what I'm saying, I think there's a lot of

00:21:20.860 evidentiary weight behind the arguments that I put forward. And that's very threatening to the

00:21:28.140 aboriginal industry, which has basically taken over large segments of our institutions. And we need to 1.00

00:21:36.620 restore enlightenment values, democratic principles. And the truth is a huge threat to the people who are

00:21:46.460 fighting against our ability to do that.

00:21:49.340 I guess you were handed a citation, was it a violation of trespass?

00:21:53.340 Yes.

00:21:54.540 Under the trespass. Are you going to fight that? Or are you going to?

00:21:56.940 Oh, yes. We're going to fight that as hard as we can, and we'll go as far as we can with it.

00:22:04.300 It's a, it's $115 fine. It was, it was, I'm just trying to remember what the actual

00:22:12.060 violation was. But it's, I've just been talking to the Justice Center for Constitutional Freedoms,

00:22:17.820 my lawyer, Glenn Blackett, we're getting the paperwork together to fight this on a number of

00:22:23.500 different levels, because it appears that University of Victoria's policies are incredibly broad,

00:22:31.020 which of course allows for the kind of abuse of power that we saw yesterday on the University of

00:22:38.540 Victoria campus. So it's going to be challenged on a number of, a number of levels.

00:22:42.780 Yeah. Well, they say you held an event and all you did was show up. And I guess

00:22:48.220 the university will be making a case that, you know, by virtue of stepping foot on the campus,

00:22:53.020 then you were holding an event.

00:22:55.980 And does that make, like, is it, should you have to get a permit

00:23:00.300 to come on campus just to talk to people? Like these are publicly funded institutions.

00:23:06.540 University of Victoria is saying this is private property.

00:23:09.260 It's not private property. It's public property. Now, I understand with the booking of rooms and so

00:23:17.420 on, you can't just have university rooms taken over by, you know, whatever person wants to say,

00:23:24.300 you know, anything. But in a wide open space where you can just go around the corner and if you're

00:23:31.100 blocking a doorway or something, you can just move and have the discussion in, you know, 10,

00:23:37.980 20, 50 feet away, the university is going to be in charge of what people can come and what

00:23:44.380 conversations can occur. Is this what we're talking about?

00:23:49.340 Craziness. Professor, thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate that.

00:23:54.140 Thanks for having me on. Professor Frances Widowson. She is with

00:24:00.220 Mount Royal University and contributing author of Dead Wrong, How Canada Got

00:24:04.540 the Residential School Story So Wrong. Thank you so much for tuning in to this edition of the show.

00:24:10.780 We'll do it again real soon, shall we? Bye-bye for now.

00:24:13.340 Thank you.

00:24:20.860 Thank you.

Juno News - December 03, 2025

Professor ARRESTED for pushing back against unmarked graves narrative

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