Western Standard - Frances Widdowson charged $600 for trespassing on University of Lethbridge campus

00:00:00.000 Hello, everyone. Today, our guest is Frances Widowson. She's a former Mount Royal University 0.71

00:00:08.800 professor who has been vocal about the absence of the evidence for the Kamloops graves. She also

00:00:15.580 has made a documentary on the subject as well as debated university students, countless university

00:00:21.860 students on campuses. This is also related to what we're going to be talking about today since

00:00:26.560 on Saturday. She was arrested at the University of Lethbridge for talking with students on the

00:00:32.880 subject. So thank you again Francis for joining us. I really appreciate it. Yeah thanks. Okay so

00:00:40.880 yeah my first question for you is just like I guess an update what happened on Saturday and

00:00:47.520 yeah did the university charge you with something? Yeah what's going on? Yeah so I was having a

00:00:54.720 discussion with actually a member of the public whose name is edward about the canlin's case

00:00:58.880 doing my spectral shoot epistemology kind of method showing him that and the university

00:01:04.960 said that i had a trespass notice against me and that they were if i didn't leave they would arrest

00:01:10.560 me and i was saying well you can just hang back and see if anything unsafe is happening that's

00:01:15.760 happened at other universities you don't have to exercise the order but they said no the higher up

00:01:21.520 people had done that and so therefore i would they would call the police and they called the police

00:01:26.000 the police dragged me out in handcuffs and then put me in the paddy wagon and then gave me a 600

00:01:32.800 dollar ticket okay so and you're planning you said prior to the interview you said

00:01:39.760 you're planning to fight the ticket as well that's correct yeah sorry i'll just oh okay

00:01:45.840 I'm going off like crazy here sorry about that um yes I'm uh Justice Center for Constitutional

00:01:54.640 Freedoms which is the great uh organization that is fighting all the other um you know situations

00:02:02.480 that I'm in like University of Victoria is a similar situation of a ticket so they're gonna

00:02:07.360 fight we're gonna fight the ticket on on the grounds that the university is violating uh

00:02:13.840 my freedom of expression rights and perhaps other procedural problems.

00:02:20.160 Okay and you're also a part of another case that was heard I think like one or two weeks ago

00:02:27.520 from 2023 when you tried to hold a lecture at the University of Lethbridge and I just want to know

00:02:35.040 what's your opinion do you think the judge from after it happened do you think the judge will

00:02:40.880 rule in your favor since you guys were arguing for like charter of rights violations yeah i'm

00:02:47.840 hoping so uh so that was from the cancellation of a of a planned lecture so that was a room

00:02:55.280 that was booked that was cancelled so i'm hoping that the universities will be seen as an area

00:03:03.200 where the charter of rights and freedoms applies that's kind of a very complicated area of case law

00:03:10.000 but I'm hoping that will be the decision and the decision will be that my charter rights were

00:03:14.640 violated and therefore the remedy for that is that the university must have me back to hold the

00:03:23.240 lecture that I was trying to give on February 1st, 2023, which really should have happened 0.99

00:03:30.520 except for the university is run by indigenization activists, which are trying to stop

00:03:35.860 The open and honest discussion of the Kamloops case, the claim, the false claim that the remains of 215 children have been found, they're trying to stop that from happening, and this would make them have to discuss this case.

00:03:50.700 Okay, so I guess I would want to know, do you think if the ruling is in your favor, this would be kind of a standard set for universities, if not in the country, at least in Alberta?

00:04:04.080 It will be in Alberta. So the way in which the legal system works is that it is provincial. So the educational system is provincial. The courts are just making decisions on what happens in Alberta.

00:04:21.280 So it would have an effect, a precedent for all universities in Alberta, but it would also probably have an effect across Canada as well, because often what happens is that the courts kind of make decisions on the basis of analogous reasoning.

00:04:38.620 So if people think that the judge's arguments are persuasive, they could adopt that in the decisions that are made elsewhere.

00:04:48.600 Okay, well, why don't we talk about the actual stuff that you're debating with students?

00:04:58.280 Yeah, why don't you just tell listeners about like, I guess, because you did the research as

00:05:03.160 when you're a professor as well on this subject. So then yeah, why don't you just tell us a little

00:05:08.360 bit about that research and what you discovered for people who don't know that much about it?

00:05:12.600 okay so I've been on a research group for about five years now when it started it started quite

00:05:19.200 early on I believe the first event that I held which was I think the first academic event on

00:05:24.280 the subject was July 10th 2021 and quite soon after that I got involved with a research group

00:05:31.600 which was involved the very very significant research researcher Nina Green who is the

00:05:37.020 the foremost expert on the Kamloops Indian Residential School. And what we didn't really

00:05:42.640 know why the Kamloops Band was claiming that the remains of 215 children had been confirmed

00:05:48.940 initially. We thought it might have been a cemetery that was abandoned, but it turned out that the

00:05:54.420 cemetery, there's no cemetery at the school. There's a cemetery on the reserve across from

00:05:59.720 the Catholic Church. And so it would have to be clandestine burials if there were burials there.

00:06:05.720 it wasn't just like markers that deteriorated and now these these these grades are unmarked because 0.90

00:06:12.120 they it's just an abandoned cemetery so what we discovered was that first of all gpr

00:06:18.600 is has non-unique data which means if there's a hit on the gpr it could be a whole variety of

00:06:24.920 things and in kamloops where most of the hits are is a septic tile that was laid on the site

00:06:31.720 in the 1920s so that's probably what the hits were and then all the other kinds of evidence is not

00:06:41.720 really very valid such as the memories of the knowledge keepers or the tooth which turned out

00:06:48.040 not to be human or the rib bone which no one seems to know where that is and besides not one parent

00:06:55.720 has said that their child never came home from the Kamloops in the residential school so if there

00:07:00.280 are 200 children clandestinely buried who would the children be and there's been many discussions

00:07:08.040 over the last 30 years the 1990s and rcmp and uh sort of inquiry the the royal commission on

00:07:16.920 aboriginal peoples hearings the truth and reconciliation hearings and in all of those

00:07:21.880 venues we never heard anyone make any mention of unmarked graves or clandestine burials that never

00:07:30.040 happened until the gpr survey was done and that's when the memories of a whole bunch of people

00:07:37.480 started to come to the surface so it's it's really not very convincing evidence for clandestine

00:07:44.360 burials but because everyone seems to be so invested in this claim and because that claim

00:07:52.760 had a whole bunch of other concessions that were granted on its basis, there's huge resistance from

00:08:00.360 the Klamloops Indian Band to do the excavations that they were paid 12.1 million dollars to do.

00:08:08.600 Okay, also one question, what are clandestine? What does that mean?

00:08:14.440 Clandestine are burials that are secret, so in a cemetery they're not clandestine burials because

00:08:21.480 they're planned burials they're burials that people intended to put bodies there and no one

00:08:27.240 should be surprised if you find remains in a cemetery because that's what cemeteries are for

00:08:34.040 but if you find a burial that is is is somewhere like an apple orchard which is in the camels case

00:08:40.040 that's what it was the only kind of burial it could be would be secret because if they were

00:08:45.080 going to be burying people on the camels india reserve they obviously would be burying people

00:08:50.200 in the cemetery and because that didn't happen um in in this proposed case people assume you know

00:08:58.280 there must have been foul play of some kind for that to happen and and this is canlis is the only

00:09:04.280 case where it's actually secret barriers or clandestine barrels which is being argued about

00:09:11.560 it all the other cases are they're doing gpr around a cemetery and they they got you know it's

00:09:18.280 highly likely that that would be remains in the cemetery. Okay, I guess I wanted to ask because

00:09:26.440 I guess University of Lethbridge isn't the only university where you've gotten arrested for just

00:09:31.960 wanting to have debates over this subject. So why do you think this is such an important issue to

00:09:37.480 keep on spreading and how come also people are so adamant in your opinion about accepting what

00:09:47.960 the actual evidence is. Yeah so in terms of the other universities there's been resistance in

00:09:56.360 I think almost all universities that I've been to and what happens is because the university

00:10:01.800 doesn't give proper messaging to the students and faculty by saying this is an academic

00:10:07.480 institution where you should be able to discuss this idea, this claim, you get an angry kind of

00:10:14.920 crowd that is telling you that you don't belong there and you shouldn't be discussing that and

00:10:19.640 the police will have to make a decision whether this is going to get out of hand and they want to

00:10:26.280 remove the person who's asking the questions because it's easier to do that than to deal with

00:10:31.320 the unruly crowd which i don't think they should be doing i think they should be facing on they

00:10:36.840 should face facing the problem of this this kind of unruly crowd but i i understand a little bit

00:10:42.120 why they do that because they're they're trying to kind of de-escalate but the thing about the

00:10:48.200 university of lethbridge was that i was just sitting at a table having a discussion with

00:10:54.920 edward about my street epistemology and the evidence-based claims and how you would make

00:11:00.760 a determination as to whether this was a valid claim and what would make you less certain or

00:11:05.880 more certain so it was a completely low-key academic exercise with no one else around it

00:11:11.480 There was a vacant cafeteria.

00:11:13.380 So that's kind of the terrible thing about the University of Lathbridge compared to all these other places.

00:11:19.900 And the reason why this is continuing is because it is a card in the House of Cards.

00:11:29.060 It is one of the fundamental cards.

00:11:31.720 And if that card starts to get pulled out, the House of Cards is going to become unstable.

00:11:38.320 and that's what people are afraid of is that there's a lot of claims that are being made

00:11:42.580 that lack evidence that we've been sort of following for quite some time and this is not

00:11:50.100 acceptable in a university environment a university uh it should be evidence-based reasoning

00:11:57.200 that we are developing and we need to do this in the case of aboriginal policy and aboriginal

00:12:03.900 non-aboriginal relations and the Kamloops case is the first thing we've got to start with because

00:12:11.340 this is an obvious falsehood that has been perpetuated for five years a whole bunch of

00:12:18.460 other claims have been put on top of it the most important being the claim of genocide so the

00:12:25.020 Kamloops case was given us the evidence for why genocide was believed to have happened

00:12:29.980 So if we knock out the Kamloops claim, then we have to start facing the question of whether the genocide claim is similarly dubious, and then that's going to have a whole bunch of implications that the aboriginal industry, the group of lawyers and consultants and neo-tribal elites that's making money off this area, is going to have threatened by these claims being exposed.

00:12:53.840 Hmm. Okay, so out of all the universities you've been to, I would like to know whether

00:13:02.640 you think University of Lethbridge is the most restrictive on speech, or if there's

00:13:08.480 worse ones in your opinion. It is the absolute worst institution that I have come across.

00:13:17.520 It is a two-time violator, or actually three-time violator. So it's not just been this last

00:13:23.760 Saturday that was the problem it was in February 4th 2026 an unbelievable thing

00:13:30.660 unfolded then when myself and Tony Hall were there to do a street epistemology

00:13:35.880 session and we were assaulted our property was stolen we had all sorts of

00:13:40.800 threats and intimidation and the University of Lethbridge

00:13:44.400 administration faculty and students associations all stood behind this

00:13:50.220 unbelievably abusive conduct that took place just because we wanted to discuss

00:13:57.180 the claim as to whether the genocide whether that was a valid claim or not

00:14:02.280 and they're continuing to do it and that's why the government has to

00:14:06.400 intervene is that union is completely captured it's promoting the the

00:14:12.360 threatening behavior that the students were engaged in and because it won't it

00:14:17.660 cannot self-correct because of the nature of the union the government has got to step in and say

00:14:23.720 they have to allow me to go back in there to be able to give a talk with other people if necessary

00:14:31.760 with Aaron Pete the chief of the hope band who is a bridge builder and in some news listens

00:14:37.460 so that we can be able to discuss this very very important claim at the University of Lethbridge

00:14:43.840 okay well one last question for you has there been any either schools or just locations that

00:14:53.800 have allowed you to do a lecture on the Kamloops graves whatsoever yes so that happened at Brock

00:15:03.080 University in 2024 I believe that happened and I also did a talk at Wilfred Laurier University

00:15:12.160 Ontario at Brock University there was quite a mobilization to try to stop me but it got defeated

00:15:19.920 but there were terrible consequences that happened because of that the most important being

00:15:25.120 Kevin Gozien who is one of the sociologists who invited me a book contract of his was cancelled

00:15:32.380 because of his invitation and and that just gives you a bit of a sense of the

00:15:37.360 the terrible climate of censorship that exists all across the country where people want to discuss

00:15:43.440 ideas openly and honestly are not supported by their union or by the administration and they

00:15:49.700 suffer they can suffer terrible consequences because of that so this needs to change our

00:15:54.840 universities are incredibly important institutions and if we are not able to to pursue the truth

00:16:01.040 at universities we're not going to be able to do that anywhere and our democratic processes

00:16:07.260 will be seriously diminished if we don't get our universities back on track

00:16:13.100 well do you have anything else you'd like to add i wanted to add that you know people are

00:16:19.700 seeing this as something that is against aboriginal people that's often the claim that's

00:16:23.760 made but aboriginal people need the truth as much as everyone else needs the truth in fact they

00:16:30.840 probably need the truth more, because it is only with the truth that they'll be able to figure out 0.99

00:16:38.040 how to, you know, to address the terrible suffering and deprivation that it gives in

00:16:43.480 Aboriginal communities. So that's kind of got to be kept in mind, is that trying to pursue the truth

00:16:49.880 is not anti-Indigenous. It has to be understood that all people need to be engaged in this

00:16:55.960 process of truth-seeking so that we can better figure out how that we can live peacefully and

00:17:03.080 cooperatively with one another. Okay, well said. Thank you very much for joining us today,

00:17:09.640 Francis appreciate it thank you for having me on

Western Standard - April 28, 2026

Frances Widdowson charged $600 for trespassing on University of Lethbridge campus

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