Dr. Widdowson seeks university records to challenge indefinite campus ban
University of Lethbridge (Courtesy of Jeff Whyte)
HomeNews Dr. Widdowson seeks university records to challenge indefinite campus ban
LETHBRIDGE, AB: The Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms announces that lawyers funded by the Justice Centre have applied to the Alberta Court of Justice for an order compelling the University of Lethbridge to produce records concerning its indefinite ban on Dr. Frances Widdowson entering campus. The university imposed the ban on February 4, 2026, after she attempted to engage students in an open discussion about residential schools. The records will support her defence against a trespassing charge and her constitutional challenge to the ban.
Dr. Widdowson attended campus at the invitation of Professor Emeritus Anthony Hall to lead a discussion examining the assertion that “The Residential Schools Were Genocidal.” The discussion used an interactive format called Spectrum Street Epistemology, which invites participants to indicate their level of agreement with the statement, explain the evidence and reasoning behind their position, and consider whether contrary evidence would change their views.
A crowd surrounded Dr. Widdowson and Professor Hall, used drums and instruments to drown out the discussion, and stole Dr. Widdowson’s belongings. Dr. Widdowson remained peaceful, but rather than issuing trespass notices to those disrupting the discussion, the university banned her from the campus, accusing her of disrupting university operations.
The application asks the court to order the production of records concerning the university’s decision to ban Dr. Widdowson from the campus, its internal discussions about her expression, and the events leading to her arrest on April 25, 2026. Records previously obtained through requests under Alberta’s Access to Information Act contain extensive redactions, including entire pages that have been blacked out.
Dr. Widdowson was arrested and charged with trespassing after returning to campus on April 25, 2026, to have coffee with students and explain the discussion method.
Constitutional lawyer Chris Fleury said, “Universities are not private residences or commercial locations that can use trespass legislation to exclude whomever they please. Universities in Alberta are bound by the Charter and must not unreasonably infringe an individual’s freedom of expression when excluding them from a campus.”
“Disagreement with a person’s views does not relieve a university of these constitutional obligations,” he added.
The proceedings follow Dr. Widdowson’s successful judicial review of the university’s cancellation of her planned 2023 lecture, “How Woke-ism Threatens Academic Freedom.” In that separate case, the Court found that the university’s decision was fundamentally flawed because it failed to expressly consider the Charter.
The current trespassing matter is scheduled for October 27, 2026, at 1:30 p.m. MT in Lethbridge.
The Justice Centre is Canada’s leading civil liberties organization defending Charter rights and freedoms in the courts of law and in the court of public opinion. Founded in 2010, the Justice Centre funds lawyers across Canada, relies entirely on voluntary donations to carry out its mission, and issues official tax receipts to donors.
Widdowson turns to court after talk shut down by protest
Freedom of speech at risk, ex-prof argues
Widdowson turns to court after talk shut down by protest
Jesse snyder
15 Apr 2026
EDMONTON • A former university professor who became a contentious figure for questioning claims about the existence of Indigenous unmarked graves says the outcome of her ongoing court battle will set a crucial precedent for academic freedom in Canada.
Frances Widdowson, who launched a legal challenge against University of Lethbridge in July 2023, had her arguments heard by a Court of King’s Bench judge on Friday. Widdowson, a former Mount Royal University professor, argues that the University of Lethbridge restricted her right to free speech when it cancelled her public talk in February 2023.
Blackfoot First Nation protesters and other demonstrators pressured the university to cancel the event, and then-president Michael Mahon consented to their calls amid what the school describes as security concerns. Widdowson — who has prompted similar protests at two other Canadian universities — said the cancellation mirrors a worrying trend of campuses restricting precisely the sorts of open debates they are meant to encourage.
Frances Widdowson says First Nations deserve to have their struggles addressed on a foundation of truth.
“People need to take this seriously, because universities are incredibly important institutions in a democratic society,” Widdowson said. “They let knowledge be disseminated, they’re important in the training of professionals, and are also a bulwark against authoritarianism. All of those functions now are under threat, because you have institutions like the University of Lethbridge, which is not academic at all anymore and has been completely captured by Indigenization activists.”
Court hearings have focused on whether the university had an obligation to protect free speech in the face of the alleged “very real harms” of hosting the event, according to a legal brief filed to the court by Widdowson’s lawyer, Glenn Blackett. Following Friday’s hearings, a ruling is expected in the coming months.
Widdowson has attracted opposition primarily for work in which she has doubted the claims put forward about Indigenous unmarked graves in Canada, with a focus on Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc, previously known as the Kamloops Indian Band, which has claimed that 215 “missing children” are buried in unmarked graves on the site of a former B.C. residential school.
Nearly five years after the initial claim, however, the First Nation has not exhumed the remains of any children. In a February update, the First Nation said its investigation using ground-penetrating radar is ongoing. Widdowson has made a point of emphasizing the lack of evidence, including in a 2025 Youtube documentary called “What Remains: Aftermath of the Kamloops Mass Grave Deception.” (A 2021 Assembly of First Nations resolution referred to the Kamloops claims as an example of “burial sites or mass graves.”)
Widdowson said it was an “open question” whether any children were secretly buried on the Kamloops site but said the allegations need to be scrutinized and supported. The graves are regularly cited as evidence of Canada’s alleged genocide against First Nations.
“Claims should be
asserted
NEVER BEEN A COMPLAINT ABOUT THE QUALITY OR ETHICS OF HER SCHOLARSHIP.
on the basis of reason, evidence and logic, not the basis of a prescribed doctrine,” she said.
The planned February 2023 event was about how “wokeism” was undermining academic freedom. Widdowson agreed to the talk on the invitation of Paul Viminitz, a professor who the university later fired in 2024. (Viminitz was previously a party to Widdowson’s Court of King’s challenge, and Jonah Pickle, a former student, is currently an applicant).
Widdowson has since called on the Alberta government to intervene in her case, but the government has thus far declined.
Elizabeth Harper, spokesperson for Advanced Education Minister Myles Mcdougall, said the province’s universities are obligated to report on their free speech policies, adding that “the University of Lethbridge has been asked to review their policies to ensure that they support free speech.”
Matthew Woodley, a lawyer at Reynolds Mirth Richards & Farmer LLP who is representing the University of Lethbridge, was not available for an interview, according to his assistant.
In a statement, University of Lethbridge spokesperson Trevor Kenney said that the same week of the cancelled talk, Widdowson led two other lectures at the university without incident.
“The University cancelled a room booking for an event involving Frances Widdowson as the result of concerns relating to possible harms raised by members of the University community, including safety risks,” Kenney said.
On May 27, 2021, the Kamloops Indian Band, or Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc, claimed it had located the remains of 215 children — “some as young as three years old” — in an apple orchard at a former residential school site. The claims were based on the results of ground-penetrating radar, which is capable of detecting ground disturbances but does not confirm the presence of human remains.
The next month, the Cowessess First Nation in Saskatchewan said it had found 751 potential unmarked graves at a cemetery near the former Merieval Indian Residential School. (The Cowessess chief emphasized at the time that they were not mass graves, but unmarked ones.)
Some cities including Victoria cancelled their Canada Day celebrations that year, while the government ordered the Canadian flag on federal buildings to fly at half-mast for several months.
Widdowson said Canada’s First Nations deserve to have their many struggles addressed on a foundation of truth.
“If we don’t have the truth, we will not be able to figure out the best way to organize society,” she said. “That’s what’s happened to Aboriginal people now, is that they’re being fed a whole bunch of falsehoods, which are making it impossible for Aboriginal people to thrive and live full lives in modern society.”
In December 2021, Mount Royal University, Widdowson’s former employer, fired her over allegations that a series of tweets she had posted were a form of harassment.
In 2024, an arbitrator found that Widdowson’s dismissal was unwarranted and that, despite her controversial views, there had “never been a complaint about the quality or ethics of her scholarship.”
Extraordinary events happened on the University of Lethbridge campus on February 4th, 2026. Mob behaviour in the Atrium was so extreme that campus security was inadequate, and the Lethbridge Police force had to be called in. I am wondering if an investigation has taken place, and if there were any repercussions for the violent and abusive elements in the crowd.
Apparently an email was sent out on the morning of February 4th, in which students and faculty were warned that there would be a controversial individual coming to the Atrium. The message implied that this was a problematic person, and so it follows that the students were being encouraged and incited to deal with the visitor as an unwelcomed entity. Some classes were even cancelled, to facilitate maximum attendance in the Atrium.
The email sent out to students and faculty did not name the unwelcome guest, but we can assume the reference was to Professor Frances Widdowson. It turned out that there were four people. Professor Emeritus Anthony Hall attended with Professor Frances Widdowson, and both professors brought their spouses. Professor Hall had taught at the U of Lethbridge for 26 years until 2016. This was his campus.
The crowd of students (and others?) which gathered in the Atrium on February 4th became aggressive, violent, loud and utterly disrespectful (understatement!) towards the four elderly people — Frances Widdowson being the young one among them. Professor Hall and his wife are both in their 70’s. The students truly took on angry mob behaviour.
They had signs to the effect of “make your ears bleed!”, while blasting horns mere inches from the ears of the visiting four. Those instruments were fetched from the music room. Property was vandalized. All of Professor Hall’s papers which he had brought along were grabbed and torn to pieces. This aggressive behaviour continued for a long time. Eventually Tony Hall was left alone, unprotected, while still surrounded by the mob. To my understanding, he was physically jostled, and thrown out onto the sidewalk by this mob.
The logical, sane, and correct response to this criminal assault on the four visitors would be a serious investigation followed by serious repercussions. Instead, the students have been praised for their behaviour. Professor Leroy Littlebear held a “purification ceremony” the following week, and congratulated the students, telling them they did well.
Is this for real? What does that say about the University of Lethbridge? What are the students learning? What is the agenda? What kind of behaviour is being encouraged?
Will there be an investigation into these events? Have criminal charges been laid yet?
Here are two articles, both of which should be studied and utilized as evidence in your investigation:
This is a very serious matter, and I await a response.
sincerely,
Monika Schaefer
McBride, B.C.
250-569-7024 (land-line)
To the Minister of Advanced Education in Alberta the Honourable Myles McDougall,
~ copied to ‘cc’ list shown below, and an extensive ‘bcc’ list not shown (blind copy) ~
Extraordinary events happened on the University of Lethbridge campus on February 4th, 2026. Mob behaviour in the Atrium was so extreme that campus security was inadequate, and the Lethbridge Police force had to be called in. I am wondering if an investigation has taken place, and if there were any repercussions for the violent and abusive elements in the crowd.
Apparently an email was sent out on the morning of February 4th, in which students and faculty were warned that there would be a controversial individual coming to the Atrium. The message implied that this was a problematic person, and so it follows that the students were being encouraged and incited to deal with the visitor as an unwelcomed entity. Some classes were even cancelled, to facilitate maximum attendance in the Atrium.
The email sent out to students and faculty did not name the unwelcome guest, but we can assume the reference was to Professor Frances Widdowson. It turned out that there were four people. Professor Emeritus Anthony Hall attended with Professor Frances Widdowson, and both professors brought their spouses. Professor Hall had taught at the U of Lethbridge for 26 years until 2016. This was his campus.
The crowd of students (and others?) which gathered in the Atrium on February 4th became aggressive, violent, loud and utterly disrespectful (understatement!) towards the four elderly people — Frances Widdowson being the young one among them. Professor Hall and his wife are both in their 70’s. The students truly took on angry mob behaviour.
They had signs to the effect of “make your ears bleed!”, while blasting horns mere inches from the ears of the visiting four. Those instruments were fetched from the music room. Property was vandalized. All of Professor Hall’s papers which he had brought along were grabbed and torn to pieces. This aggressive behaviour continued for a long time. Eventually Tony Hall was left alone, unprotected, while still surrounded by the mob. To my understanding, he was physically jostled, and thrown out onto the sidewalk by this mob.
The logical, sane, and correct response to this criminal assault on the four visitors would be a serious investigation followed by serious repercussions. Instead, the students have been praised for their behaviour. Professor Leroy Littlebear held a “purification ceremony” the following week, and congratulated the students, telling them they did well.
Is this for real? What does that say about the University of Lethbridge? What are the students learning? What is the agenda? What kind of behaviour is being encouraged?
Will there be an investigation into these events? Have criminal charges been laid yet?
Here are two articles, both of which should be studied and utilized as evidence in your investigation:
Denying Freedom of Speech at Canadian Universities
Below is an excellent article written by lawyer John Carpay, President of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms, located in Calgary, Alberta.The article discusses the tragedy that is taking place at Canadian universities, where, shockingly, freedom of speech and thought are prohibited. Instead, the universities insist that only Marxist left-wing concepts are to be heard in their institutions. Freedom of Speech is a right protected by Article 18 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and Article 19 of the UN Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and is also included in Section 2 of Canada’s Constitution, the Charter of Rights.The time has come for the provincial governments that provide billions of dollars to support universities, to withdraw financial support from universities until such time as they permit freedom of speech and thought in their institutions.Since this issue has such a detrimental effect on our future generations, we are bringing it to your attention.Please contact the Premier of your province and your Minister of Education/Colleges, Universities (see below for contact information) and request that your province withdraw funding from universities unless they agree to protect freedom of speech and thought. _________________________ It’s Time to Defund Universities that Censor Speech on CampusBy:John Carpay, B.A., LL.B.PresidentJustice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms
It’s high time for Canadians to start demanding that provincial governments stop giving billions of tax dollars to public universities which demonstrate by their actions that they have no love for inquiry, debate, and truth. The arrest of Frances Widdowson at the University of Victoria for seeking to engage students in debate on campus is the latest example of an aggressive anti-intellectual trend that grows worse on campus every decade. On Dec. 2, 2025, Widdowson was charged with trespassing after attempting to engage in an open dialogue with students at UVic. She showed up on campus with a sign that read simply “What remains?” She hoped to engage students in discussions about whether they believe that 215 children are buried at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. To this day, not one body has been found at the site in Kamloops. Canadian taxpayers have provided more than $12 million for excavations at Kamloops and other former residential school sites in B.C. that could tell us the truth. However, the local Kamloops aboriginal council continues to refuse to conduct an excavation, despite receiving all this money. Yet government, media, and academic narratives persist about the “genocidal” nature of residential schools. Widdowson, a former professor at Mount Royal University, is one of the few academics in Canada who isn’t afraid to challenge dominant but unsupported narratives like this one.
Initially, the only targets of censorship, harassment, and bullying were campus pro-life groups. For example, the Simon Fraser Student Society revoked club status from the pro-life club SFU LifeLine after declaring that all clubs must take a pro-choice stance under a new “Reproductive Rights” policy. The University of Alberta condoned the bullying, censorship, and intimidation of one of its own student groups, UAlberta Pro-Life. The university was ultimately rebuked by the Alberta Court of Appeal for imposing a $17,500 “security fee” that no student club could afford. The University of Calgary found pro-life students guilty of non-academic misconduct for having peacefully expressed their unpopular opinions on campus, but was rebuked by the court in Wilson v. University of Calgary.
Since the 1990s, the cancer of censorship has been tolerated and coddled by university officials across Canada. Predictably, this cancer has spread. It is no longer limited only to pro-life groups. Today, the vast majority of Canadian universities have a strong commitment to “diversity,” “equity” and “inclusion” in their mission, vision, and values statements. They impose woke ideology on all students and faculty. They have a very limited willingness to uphold free expression, open inquiry, and the pursuit of truth. The Equity, Diversity and Inclusion Institutional Capacity-Building Grants of the federal government also undermines free speech and the pursuit of truth. In order to qualify for these grants, universities must impose mandatory training for students, faculty, and staff on “anti-oppression” and “unconscious bias” strategies.
However, the biggest funders of public universities are Canada’s provincial governments, not the federal government. It would take not just a book, but a large encyclopedia set, to document all the cases of Canadian universities and student unions censoring speech on campus in the past 30 years. The following are just a few examples.
In 2017, McMaster University in Hamilton allowed a loud, angry mob to shout down Jordan Peterson, then a professor at the University of Toronto, and prevent him from speaking. The university’s president has not apologized. Mount Royal University, in addition to firing Widdowson because of her public disagreement with woke ideology, also cancelled its instructor Mark Hecht, in response to people claiming to be offended by his 2019 Vancouver Sun column that criticized diversity.
In 2019, Simon Fraser University cowered to extremists by cancelling a panel discussion titled “How Media Bias Shapes the Gender Identity Debate.” The panelists included Meghan Murphy and Jonathan Kay, and moderator Lindsay Shepherd. In violation of the Criminal Code, trans activists threatened to physically disrupt the event by engaging in property destruction and false fire alarm activation. SFU, like so many other universities, practiced cancel culture under the guise of “safety and security.” Canadian universities ignore the fact that threats to safety and security come uniquely from intolerant thugs who violate the Criminal Code, and not from those who peacefully express their views. Yet universities routinely reward those who threaten criminal actions (e.g. disrupting and obstructing events) and punish the innocent by cancelling events. The University of British Columbia Free Speech Club booked space to host journalist Andy Ngo on Jan. 29, 2020. Ngo was to speak on the topic of antifa violence. The club paid a room booking deposit in November, but UBC rescinded the event in December with a vague mention of “safety” and “security.” More than five years later, this matter is still before the courts. In 2020, the University of Alberta fired anthropology professor Kathleen Lowrey, who describes herself as a gender-critical feminist, from her position as associate chair of undergraduate programs, because anonymous complainants said she made the learning environment “unsafe.” Neither Dean of Students André Costopoulos nor the UAlberta department of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion and Human Resources Services would speak to the question of how many individuals complained about Lowrey and what the complaints alleged. In 2020, evolutionary ecologist and Dean of Graduate Studies at Laurentian University David Lesbarrès sent out a tweet that included a hashtag considered contentious among the activist class: “#AllLivesMatter.” Lesbarrères was removed from his position as dean by the university’s president, who claimed that his tweet “hurt many people.” In 2021, the University of Winnipeg kicked a student out of its education program for having attended a peaceful, outdoor, off-campus rally against lockdown restrictions that violated Charter freedoms. The university only reinstated the student after receiving a legal warning letter from a Justice Centre lawyer. Patrick Provost, professor of microbiology and immunology, was suspended and ultimately fired by Laval Université. An expert in micro-RNA, the small molecules that help regulate genes, Provost criticized the COVID vaccines in December 2021. He argued that the risks of COVID vaccination in children outweighed the benefits because of the potential side-effects from mRNA vaccines. Rather than facilitating debate, the university fired him in 2022. The University of Lethbridge is currently being sued over its decision in 2023 to cancel Widdowson’s lecture, “How Woke-ism Threatens Academic Freedom.” The presidents of Canadian universities, along with their boards and senior staff, have made it abundantly clear that they have no intention of restoring free expression on campus. They appeal to “academic freedom” as somehow conferring on them a right to censor unpopular views on campus. They impose woke ideology on students and staff. They want to continue receiving billions of dollars from taxpayers each year, even while refusing to facilitate the pursuit of truth through open inquiry and debate. Provincial governments can start fixing this problem tomorrow. It’s not complicated. The ministers of advanced education or post-secondary learning in each province can inform university presidents that continued taxpayer funding will be provided only on the condition that universities protect free speech and facilitate the pursuit of truth through open inquiry and debate. Provincial legislation can be modified if necessary. If a university refuses to meet this fair and basic standard, it is free to seek out funding from sources other than government. Taxpayers and their elected representatives have been far too tolerant of egregious misconduct, for far too long. John Carpay, B.A., LL.B. has defended campus free speech in courts of law and in the court of public opinion for more than two decades. He is President of the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (jccf.ca).
Free speech trampled at the University of Victoria. Admin bans visiting prof, Frances Widdowson; cops arrest prof for trespassing on public property; Indians drum and scream to drown out dissent; antifa assault freedom fighters.
very powerful recording of authentic demonic possession caught on video
eBREAKING: Frances Widdowson arrested at University of Victoria Frances Widdowson, a Mount Royal University professor and author of Dead Wrong, was arrested at the University of Victoria on Tuesday after being told that she was not welcome on the campus. Frances Widdowson, a Mount Royal University professor and author of Dead Wrong, was arrested at the University of Victoria on Tuesday after being told that she, OneBC interim party leader Dallas Brodie, and former schoolteacher Jim McMurtry were not welcome on the university’s campus.Widdowson, Brodie, McMurtry and others planned to attend the campus for a peaceful discussion with students, faculty, media and the public about the widely disseminated — and disputed — 2018 claim that the remains of 215 children were discovered in unmarked graves at the Kamloops Residential School.
The group held a similar free-speech event at Thompson Rivers University in Kamloops just weeks earlier, which ended in largely productive and civil discourse.
A livestream posted on X by Kris Eriksen showed the group being trespassed from the campus by what appeared to be members of the Saanich Police Department.Shortly afterwards, multiple posts and images showed Widdowson being directed into a police vehicle.A letter sent to the group ahead of the event noted that Widdowson, Brodie and McMurtry specifically were not welcome because they had not gone through the “booking process,” and on the grounds that there was not enough time to “ensure adequate safety planning is in place.”Wyatt Claypool, a OneBC staffer who attended the event, told True North multiple assaults occurred and that one individual suffered damage to their property.He added that Widdowson remains held at the Saanich police station.
FREE SPEECH DISCUSSION ABOUT KAMLOOPS UNMARKED GRAVES CLAIMS: Tuesday, 2 Dec. 2025, 12:30 p.m., in front of the McPherson Library Bldg., UVic Campus Frances Widdowson, one of the authors of the best-selling book Grave Error, will
be holding a free-speech discussion about the Kamloops unmarked graves claims as follows:Free Speech Discussion about Kamloops Unmarked Graves Claims University of Victoria Campus In front of the McPherson Library BuildingTuesday, Dec. 2, 2025 at 12:30 p.m.Participants:
Frances Widdowson, Professor, Mount Royal University, Calgary, Alberta – found to have been wrongfully dismissed; reinstatement deemed by arbitrator not to be feasible, but this decision is being challenged
Dallas Brodie, MLA and Leader of OneBC
Tara Armstrong, MLA and House Leader of OneBC
Jim McMurtry, former high-school teacher in Abbotsford who was fired from his job for speaking out about the Kamloops Residential School situation
Tornados of controversy are swirling around the subject of mass graves in Canada and Gaza. Mass graves in Gaza were created along with the Israeli occupation and destruction of hospitals in Gaza. These grave sites are being dug up between rounds of Israeli bombing of Palestinian civilians. The evidence of mutilated humans coming out of Gaza’s mass graves have reportedly contained evidence of organ removal, handcuffing of doctors and patients, as well as point-blank executions including shots to the head.
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The discovery of mass graves is often seen as a hallmark that acts of genocide have occurred. While the association of mass graves with genocide is virtually irrefutable in Gaza, the same is certainly not the case in Canada. The discussion in Canada about the supposed discovery of unmarked mass graves adjacent to Christian residential schools is just now heating up.
From the late 1800s until the 1970s these federally-funded institutions were a core institution in providing education to Indian students. Issues concerning the provision of education to Indian groups often figured prominently in the Crown-Aboriginal treaty negotiations with Indian groups east of the Pacific watershed. To this day, this watershed marks much of the border of British Columbia with the rest of Canada.
The claims concerning the discovery of unmarked graves adjacent to Indian residential schools have been accepted as established fact by the government of Canada and much of the media since 2021. The story was quickly absorbed and adopted by the government of Justin Trudeau. In 2022 was adopted by Parliament without investigation as if it was a proven fact.
These claims are being subjected to vigorous scrutiny and a concerted effort of debunking. This project is being advanced by a formidable group of academics, journalists, retired judges and such. The volume is entitled Grave Error; How the Media Misled Us (and the Truth About Residential Schools)
Before and After Pictures were a staple of Indian Residential Schools in Canada and the United States.The Idea was to illustrate the success of a “civilizing” process.
The Forward to Grave Error is written by the legendary neocon elder, Conrad Black. Black is the former Zionist media mogul and prison inmate who some see with justification as an authentic embodiment of a renaissance man. Besides making business history with his edgy (too edgy?) handling of Hollinger Inc., Black has written many important history books. I remember when I was working on my Ph.D. in Canadian history at the University of Toronto in the late 1970s that Black’s biography of former Quebec Premier, Maurice Duplessis, was required reading.
The co-editors of Grave Error are C.P. Champion and Tom Flanagan. Professor Flanagan rivals the importance of Conrad Black in terms of the mark he has made for better or worse on Canadian history. Flanagan was at the core of the transformation of the Progressive Conservative Party of Canada into the Conservative Party of Canada. The iconic leader of the CP was Stephen Harper, the core person in one of the few Canadian governments not dominated by Laurentian elites.
Flanagan took hold of the Social Credit legacy of Alberta that came to be embodied in Preston Manning’s Reform Party. Flanagan and Manning teamed up. Coming in from the edges was Torontonian Stephen Harper. By performing well as a student in Flanagan’s circle, Harper was successful in his quest to present himself as a credible Albertan politician.
Flanagan mixed the Manning heritage with Reagan-Thatcheresque enthusiasms of his circle of students who pretty much saw their prof as the rock star of the Texas North University in Alberta’s rising oil and gas metropolis. Among the Flanagan devotees were Harper, Ezra Levant, and the current Alberta Premier, Danielle Smith.
In the 1990s when I was a member of the Native American Studies Department at the University of Lethbridge, I saw Tom Flanagan as something of a nemesis. This American political scientist was one of the the original hires in 1968 at the nascent University of Calgary. In seeking to fit into his new academic home, Prof. Flanagan chose as his first Canadian subject the life and times of Metis Rebel Leader Louis Riel. Did Prof. Flanagan picture himself as the ring leader of an Alberta rebellion in the making?
Flanagan built on this base to become sufficiently expert on Aboriginal Affairs in Canada that he was able to hire himself out to federal agencies in order to give advice and to perform as an expert witness in court. I saw it then and see it now, Prof Flanagan’s expertise lay in directing judges how to undermining the exercise of Aboriginal rights as defined in their dubious rulings.
Regardless of my view of these matters, this aspect of Flanagan’s career has put him in a good position to intervene with insight into the growing furor driven by the supposed discovery of unmarked mass graves adjacent to Indian residential schools.
Thus it is that Black and Flanagan, both heavy hitters, have joined forces with a high-powered team of devoted writers and thinkers. Their shared aim is to say enough is enough to what they see as woke opportunists.
It is well known that Justin Trudeau tends to be especially generous with his patronage dollars to those who attach themselves to his agendas for First Nations peoples. Trudeau inherits a long Liberal tradition of using large concentrations of money to keep hand-picked leaders in partisan line with Liberal policies.
Not surprisingly, Trudeau did not do his homework as he has latched onto yet another divisive boondoggle to float his “post-national” contention that Canada is a genocidal country that should be enwrapped asap into more globalist webs of conniving intrigues. Of course in my view neither Black nor Flanagan have been exempt from implicating Canada in their own forms of conniving globalist intrigues.
This background helps explain how it is that a seemingly obscure book on an seemingly narrow subject is suddenly selling lots of copies in spite of it being banned here and there. As far as I know there hasn’t been a ritual book burning yet but the volume has definitely been removed from several libraries.
In the BC town of Quesnel, just looking at Grave Error was made to seem in April like an act of heresy to be punished by spurning, economic boycott and various forms of deplatforming. As in many small communities throughout Canada, Quesnel businesses depend on the ample purchasing power of many First Nations people in the region.
Frances Widdowson attended the meeting with the intention of explaining her own essay, “Billy Remembers.” Even before she made the long drive from her home in Calgary to Quesnel, she was interrogated by a CBC journalist Jordan Tucker, a person who embodies the transcendental character of the Liberal government’s state broadcaster these days.
The Transcendent CBC Journalist, Jordan Tucker
Interview with Jordan Tucker (she/her) by Frances Widdowson Frances Widdowson
It seems Dr. Widdowson has been appointed by some overseeing committee of high wokedom as the main embodiment of a new type of heresy designated as a “residential school denialism” by those in and around the Canadian version of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Investigation. Dr. Widdowson long wrangled with her former employer at Mount Royal because her discourse was allegedly not in line with the College’s policy of “Indigenization.”
In February of 2023 the then-President of the University of Lethbridge, Dr. Mike Mahon, gave the green light to silence Dr. Widdowson by overwhelming her scheduled talk with well-organized drumming, chanting and electric guitar screeching. The object of this attack on free speech and open debate was to block her capacity of making herself heard.
Many in Alberta and beyond saw this display as a very powerful symbol of the DEI intolerance that is replacing independent thought and articulation with group think in increasingly authoritarian universities throughout the West. As a result of the extension of the debacle in Gaza to sharp divides on university campuses, this pattern of sacrificing to large donors of control over curriculum and faculty staffing is being put on full display by many prominent IVY League schools in the USA.
I agree with the authors in Grave Error that the existence of unmarked mass graves adjacent to Indian residential schools have not been proven. The great weight of evidence points against the conclusions that arose first from a press release in May of 2021. The release came from Rosanne Casimir, Chief of the Tk’emlúps te Secwepemc (Kamloops Indian Band). Without presenting credible evidence, Chief Casimir made the startling claim that an unmarked mass grave containing 215 bodies had been discovered in an apple orchard beside Kamloops Indian residential school.
I agree for the most part with Grave Error’s authors. They maintain that a solid evidentiary basis has not been established to prove the new thesis that mass murder and mass graves constitute an integral part of the history of Indian residential schools in Canada.
I do not agree, however, that these findings preclude the need to look at the possible role of various forms of genocidal activity in the genesis of northern North America from pre-Columbian times to the Canada that exists today. I find the conclusion that because certain claims about the existence of mass graves attending Indian residential schools have been disproven, the possibility of genocidal expressions in Canada’s history need never come up again.
I think it ill-advised to declare that all of Canadian history is devoid of genocide before and after the UN’s creation of the Genocide Convention in 1948. Canadian history does not exist in an isolated void. I have repeatedly put forward the view that the entire Western Hemisphere has been the site since 1492 of an inter-generational genocide that can be pictured as a single monumental event whose commemoration might be marked by a different kind of holocaust memorial.
For now, however, I’ll leave it at that. I’ll simply add that Dr. Widdowson and I are working together these days. We are engaged in a case study of the assault on free speech and open debate at University of Lethbridge, where I taught for 26 years. See the announcement of our upcoming meeting on the matter in the addendum below.
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Addendum
10 May, 2024 Dear Friends, Colleagues and Associates;
Above is the poster for an important upcoming public event on the afternoon of Saturday May 25 at the main branch of the Lethbridge Public Library. Many of you will remember when Dr. Frances Widdowson was overwhelmed by chanting, drumming and the screech on an electric guitar. The object of the ruckus was to prevent the speaker from delivering a public presentation in the Atrium of the University of Lethbridge. The censorship action proved to be a “success.”
Dr. Widdowson was silenced and those who came to hear her talk were deprived of her articulation. Certain faculty members had decided Frances Widdowson was afflicted with a malady they labelled “residential school denialism.”
Some faculty members decided to act on this judgment. For their students, these faculty members painted a picture of Dr. Widdowson as an embodiment of a constituency they identified as hostile to the idea that all residential schools at all times should be equated with genocide.
Disgruntled faculty and others pressured U of L President, Dr. Mike Mahon, to cancel Dr. Widdowson’s lecture after he had already announced that his Office approved of her talk. Some interpret what happened as a cave in by Dr. Mahon to political pressure. He ordered that a speaker on campus should be cancelled because she was the bearer of interpretations that some faculty and students wanted to censor. The rest, as they say, is history.
The key point in this matter is not that one side or the other is right or wrong. Individuals especially in the hallowed Halls of Academia have a right and sometimes even a responsibility to decide such matters for themselves. The key point is that academics must be able to research, argue and articulate issues in an environment of protected free speech and academic freedom regardless of the prevailing group think. Certainly it is not the role of academic administrators to jump in arbitrarily by making themselves instant experts in whatever academic debate they want to dominate and/or disrupt.
Dr. Widdowson has written academic essays and books in and around the topic of the history of Indian education in Canada. Whether one agrees with her views or not, it was wrong to have tried to silence her at an Alberta University. I attended the organized shutdown of her talk. In my view and in that of many other people I have since met and talked to about what happened, the shutdown of Dr. Widdowson in February of 2023 was not a proud moment. It was a very troubling occurrence in the history of the institution of higher learning where I taught from 1990 to 2016.
I moved to Lethbridge in 1990 to be Associate Professor of Native American Studies. In the early weeks of 2016 this tenured full professor was abruptly suspended without pay completely outside the rules of the Board’s collective agreement with the Faculty Association. Then in 2017 the matter went to court in the Lethbridge Court of (then) Queen’s Bench.
By court order the judge ruled that I should be reinstated into my academic position at the U of L. As I plan to discuss, there is every reason that the Board’s objective in trying to deplatform me was to silence my interpretations because my views went contrary to the agenda of a very rich and powerful lobby. I would still like to know how this lobby gained such a tight grip on the policies and actions of the administration of the University administration.
As the commentator in Frances’ forthcoming presentation on 25 May, I’m sure I will disagree with her on many points. Agreeing to disagree is a vital attribute of healthy academic life. But trying to shut down those with whom one disagrees, undermines the entirety of the whole academic project that is supposed to be a fair and balanced meritocracy.
When I met Frances after the event where her talk was shut down, we of course compared notes about our treatment at the University of Lethbridge. Eventually we came up with the idea of mounting the initiative we started earlier this year. In due course, as this process unfolds I intend to talk about my own experiences with the process of being deplatformed in ways that include many elements outside the set of facts outlined above.
I never did get back into the classroom. In 2018 I decided to retire. I did retire as a full professor in good standing. I gained the new title of Professor Emeritus. I am announcing here that I am henceforth acting in my capacity as a Professor Emeritus of the University of Lethbridge in the remaining part of the process that Frances and I have mounted. I think my taking on this responsibility in unusual times and under unusual circumstances is entirely consistent with the duties of an individual carrying the title of Emeritus Professor.
As I see it, I shall be speaking and acting in this process from within the U of L’s faculty. I have devoted some of the best years and professional efforts of my life to my academic endeavours at the University of Lethbridge. I would like to see the institution thrive and prosper.
As a senior faculty member I want to help in the process of making some suggestions that might assist our school in getting back on track. A University simply cannot fulfil a mission to be a school of authentic higher learning without creating a sound foundation for the expression of unhindered speech and academic freedom.
Since retiring from teaching I have continued to involve myself in research and publication as well as in very active community involvement starting with the manufactured COVID crisis. The questions come up in my community work: Where are all the hundreds of University professors and why are they not contributing more actively to working through issues of immense import– life and death issues in, for instance, public health matters.
What kind of message does our university send when it shuts down, rather than encourages, the highlighting of a diversity of perspectives in public discourse in local, regional, national and global contexts? The community wants and deserves better than what we have seen from the University of Lethbridge in recent years.
In this context I am not making any claim about who is right or wrong in the matters we have recently faced and are facing. But in my view there is no doubt that the University of Lethbridge has become way too isolated and partisan in key aspects of the community life of this region.
Please consider attending the public event at the Lethbridge Public Library on Saturday May 25 at 2 pm.
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Hundreds of people have digitally signed a petition on Change.org seeking to have the event cancelled. The petition states:
Her presence on campus not only denigrates the status of the University by giving space to a speaker who promotes historical falsities and racial bigotry, but endangers students’ well-being and safety.
The petition has attracted the attention of U of L President and Vice-Chancellor Dr. Mike Mahon, who issued the following statement:
The University of Lethbridge has become aware of a guest speaker, invited by one of our faculty members, whose views are in conflict with a number of the values held by the University — including the University’s stated commitment to the Calls to Action of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada. We strongly disagree with assertions that seek to minimize the significant and detrimental impact of Canada’s residential school system. I have heard from many students, faculty and staff who have expressed their disappointment that this event is taking place. It is encouraging that a concurrent evidence-based counter-lecture has also been organized, and that the vast majority of our community finds these views abhorrent.
The U of L Statement on Free Expression states that its “mandate affirms its commitment to protect free inquiry and scholarship, facilitate access to scholarly resources, and support artistic expression and free and open scholarly discussion of issues.
Mahon also said that debate or deliberation on campus “may not be suppressed because the ideas put forward are thought by some, or even more, to be offensive, unwise, immoral, or misguided.”
This largely virtue-signaling reply that nevertheless upholds academic freedom and constitutionally protected speech did not satisfy the U of L’s indigenous studies department which just issued the following statement full of distortions and other errors as shown by my annotated comments in UPPER CASE BOLD.
The Department of Indigenous Studies vehemently condemns the anti-Indigenous rhetoric routinely disseminated by former MRU professor Frances Widdowson and deplores the fact that she is being given a platform to legitimize that discourse on our campus. [ANTI-INDIGENOUS RHETORIC IS ANYTHING THAT REMOTELY CHALLENGES THE RHETORICALLY FALACIOUS MAINSTREAM NARRATIVE]Widdowson has left us in no doubt as to her positions; she has regularly espoused these views through published articles, public speaking, broadcast podcasts, and other public forums. She specifically denounces the TRC’s classification of the Residential School system as genocide and disputes the veracity of the unmarked graves of Indigenous children found at the sites of multiple former Residential School sites. [GENOCIDE? THERE IS NOT SINGLE VERIFIED EXAMPLE OF A CHILD MURDERED BY A STAFF MEMBER AT ANY RESIDENTIAL SCHOOL; NO “UNMARKED GRAVES” HAVE BEEN LOCATED OUTSIDE THOSE IN KNOWN INDIGENOUS RESERVE GRAVEYARDS. NONE.]
The facts of the Residential School system and the experiences of Indigenous children within that system were rigorously established through the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. [THE WORK OF THE TRC AND THE QUESTIONING OF THE INDIGENOUS “SURVIVORS” WAS THE FURTHEST THING FROM “RIGOROUS.”]
At least 150,000 Indigenous children across multiple generations were removed from their families and communities. [MOST OF THESE STUDENTS VOLUNTARILY ATTENDED THE SCHOOLS.]
They were processed through an alien education system that was designed to forcibly remove all vestiges of their original identities, cultures, and languages.[THIS IS A GROSS DISTORTION EVEN OF WHAT IS CONTAINED IN THE TRC REPORTS AND BY THE VOLUMINOUS MATERIAL ON THIS BRAND NEW SITE: https://indianresidentialschoolrecords.com/.
These policies, which are a matter of historical record within Canada, clearly meet the United Nations definition of genocide, as listed in Article II of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide. [NOTHING COULD BE LESS CLEAR BECAUSE THE IRS AND OTHER INDIGENOUS EXPERIENCES SATISFY NOT A SINGLE ELEMENT OF ARTICLE II:“In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such:
Killing members of the group;
Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group;
Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part;
Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group;
Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
A protest organized by the U of L Student Action Assembly is scheduled to be held at the university’s Anderson Hall building beginning at 4:00 p.m. on February 1, 2023, prior to the start of Widdowson’s speech at 4:30 p.m.
Don’t be surprised if the ferocity of this protest results in the cancellation of Dr. Widdowson’s address.
At the same time that Widdowson will give her speech at the U of L, Dr. Sean Carleton, a self-declared “settler” on indigenous soil, and assistant professor of history and native studies at the University of Manitoba will deliver a virtual presentation, titled, “Truth before Reconciliation: How to Identify and Confront Residential School Denialism.”
