On April 14, 2026, Charlene Belleau became somewhat infamous. This was because she appeared at an event sponsored by UBC’s Faculty of Medicine, and proceeded to state that she wished that Frances Widdowson would be dragged into the Kamloops Indian Residential School basement and beaten and raped.
Belleau was referring to an encounter that she had with Frances Widdowson at Thompson Rivers University on November 12, 2025. In this interaction, Widdowson and her cinematographer, Simon Hergott asked Belleau about whether the relative who had died was her grandfather or her uncle, as Belleau had made references to both in the past. In this instance, Belleau refers to him as her “uncle”, but also states that it doesn’t matter if he were her uncle or her grandfather.
In this clip, Belleau refers to the relative as her “Grandfather”.
In 2014, Belleau referred to him as her “great uncle”
In 2023, during the Special Interlocutor gathering, Belleau referred to him as “grandpa”
In Quesnel in 2024, Belleau referred to him as her “uncle”, and that he had committed suicide because children were “hung on poles” and lashed until they passed out.
At Thompson Rivers University, Widdowson also questioned Chief Belleau about her testimony at the Royal Commisson on Aboriginal Peoples on March 9, 1993.
In this testimony
She also says that her own experience was postive.
Nowhere in her testimony does she talk about students being put on poles and beaten until they passed out or refer to her “grandfather” or “uncle” committing suicide and being buried in an unknown location.
Chief Belleau is not just an innocent Elder who who making off the cuff comments. She has been a major player in aboriginal politics for decades. She was the liaison in the RCMP task force in the 1990s, where no one came forward to make claims about “unmarked graves” at the Kamloops Indian Residential School.
Belleau was also working for the Assembly of First Nations in 2004-2005 to negotiate for compensation for residential school students.
In 2010, Belleau testified at a public event with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in Winnipeg. In her testimony, an “emotional” Belleau states that she has not had “a voice” previously in spite of all the high profile positions that she has held.
After the Kamloops “discovery”, Belleau was appointed as a “community liaison” to help “caretaker” communities access funding for “unmarked graves” searches and mental health supports. In this presentation, she refers to her relative as her “great grandfather”.
The most shocking aspect of Belleau’s presentation in April 2026 at UBC was the reaction of the UBC administrator who was interviewing her – Derek Thompson. Thompson, the Director of Indigenous Engagement, did not push back against Belleau’s comments at all. Instead, he referred to “the 215 gravesites” and that “215 families” were saying that they couldn’t “account for those children”.
Even worse, Thompson implied that UBC should have asked the Musqueam if Frances Widdowson, Dallas Brodie, and Jim McMurtry should be allowed to come on campus for their “protest” (for the record, it was not a “protest”; it was an attempt to ask questions about the false “Kamloops 215” claim that UBC had been perpetrated for the past four and a half years.)
The actions of the University of British Columbia have been reprehensible, and are due to the fact that the university has been captured by the prescribed doctrine of Indigenization. This has resulted in it fomenting the #Kamloops215Deception, as well as allowing Frances Widdowson, Dallas Brodie and Jim McMurtry to be opened up to detestation and vilification. It is even possible that UBC has made it more likely for people to engage in physical violence against those who criticize the “unmarked graves” claims.
