VICTORIA, British Columbia (LifeSiteNews) — A Canadian academic who spoke out against claims there are mass unmarked graves of kids on former Indigenous residential schools, and who was arrested on a university campus as a result for trespassing, is fighting back with the help of a top constitutional group.
Dr. Frances Widdowson was arrested and given a ticket on December 2, 2025, at the University of Victoria (UVic) campus after trying to engage in conversation about “the disputed claims of unmarked graves in Kamloops,” noted the Justice Centre for Constitutional Freedoms (JCCF) in a recent news release.
According to the JCCF, Widdowson was trying to initiate a “good faith” conversation with people on campus, along with the leader of OneBC provincial party, Dallas Brodi.
“My arrest at the University of Victoria is an indication of an institution that is completely unmoored from its academic purpose,” said Widdowson in a statement made available to LifeSiteNews.
She added that the “institution” has been “perpetuating the falsehood of 215 remains of children being confirmed at Kamloops since 2021, and is intent on censoring any correction of this claim.”
“This should be of concern for everyone who believes that universities should be places of open inquiry and critical thinking, not propaganda and indoctrination,” she added.
UVic had the day before Widdowson’s arrest warned on its website that those in favor of free speech were “not permitted to attend UVic property for the purpose of speaking publicly.”
Despite the warning, Widdowson, when she came to campus, was met with some “100 aggressive protesters assembled where she intended to speak at Petch Fountain,” noted the JCCF.
The protesters consisted of self-identified Communists, along with Antifa-aligned people and Hamas supporters.
When Widdowson was confronted by university security, along with local police, she was served with a trespass notice.
“When she declined to leave, she was arrested, detained for about two hours, and charged under British Columbia’s Trespass Act—an offence punishable by fines up to $2,000 or up to six months’ imprisonment,” said the JCCF.
According to Constitutional lawyer Glenn Blackett, UVic actions are shameful, as it “receives hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars annually while it facilitates the arrest of Canadians attempting to engage in free inquiry on campus.”
Widdowson’s legal team, with the help of the JCCF, will be defending her ticket to protect her “Charter-protected freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly.”
Widdowson served as a tenured professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary, Alberta, before she was fired over criticism of her views on identity politics and Indigenous policy, notes the JCCF. She was vindicated, however, as an arbitrator later found her termination was wrongful.
In 2021 and 2022, the mainstream media ran with inflammatory and dubious claims that hundreds of children were buried and disregarded by Catholic priests and nuns who ran some Canadian residential schools. The reality is, after four years, there have been no mass graves discovered at residential schools.
However, as the claims went unfounded, over 120 churches, most of them Catholic and many of them on Indigenous lands that serve the local population, have been burned to the ground, vandalized, or defiled in Canada since the spring of 2021.
Last year, retired Manitoba judge Brian Giesbrecht said Canadians are being “deliberately deceived by their own government” after blasting the former Trudeau government for “actively pursuing” a policy that blames the Catholic Church for the unfounded “deaths and secret burials” of Indigenous children.
As reported by LifeSiteNews, new private members’ Bill C-254, “An Act To Amend The Criminal Code” introduced by New Democrat MP Leah Gazan, looks to give jail time to people who engage in so-called “Denialism.” The bill would look to jail those who question the media and government narrative surrounding Canada’s “Indian Residential School system” that there are mass graves despite no evidence to support this claim.
