On March 2, 2025, Frances Widdowson hosted an event with Tom Flanagan, Michelle Stirling and Barry Kirkham (moderated by Shannon Lee Mannion). Both James Heller and Dallas Brodie were in the audience and made some comments after the presentations because Kirkham was not able to present due to technical difficulties. Widdowson interviewed Kirkham the next day and posted the interview on her Soundcloud. All videos and complete transcripts are available in the link below.
The transcript of Brodie’s has been excerpted and is posted below.
It should be noted that in July 2021, the Kamloops Indian Band made a “funding request” of $9.3 million for “Kamloops Indian Residential School Ancestral Remains Excavation”. Although the Kamloops Indian Band actually received $12.1 million, no excavations have been undertaken. Some would say that this constitutes “fraud” – https://wokeacademy.info/kamloops-fraud-video-and-transcript/.
Brodie’s remarks have resulted in a major split in the Conservative Party in B.C.
The conflict began when John Rustad spoke to the media on February 24 and made many false claims.
Two MLAS – A’a:liya Warbus and Peter Milobar – on February 24 and 25 respectively then made critical comments about Brodie’s post. (Warbus is Indigenous and Miloabar is married to an indigenous person.) Therefore, Brodie was merely reacting to criticism made about her, and did not instigate the conflict.
The British Columbia Assembly of First Nations weighed in and issued the following “News Release” on February 27, 2025. This release gives the reader a sense of the kinds of concerns that would arise after Brodie gave her remarks on March 2. The BCAFN demanded that Rustad “immediately remove MLA Brodie from the Conservative Caucus and publicly denounce her statements made about unmarked graves and burial sites”.
This is spite of the fact that Kimberly Murray, the Special Interlocutor, refers to “potential unmarked burials” when discussing the Kamloops case – https://osi-bis.ca/wp-content/uploads/2024/11/3.OSI-Executive-Summary.pdf
On March 3, 2025, Sean Carleton did an interview with Redeye media. This interview is interesting because it shows Carleton supporting Brodie’s main point, while at the same time spreading misinformation himself.
Nowhere is the Kamloops Indian Band’s Press Release, however, are “anomalies” mentioned. In fact, the Kamloops Indian Band states that some of the “missing children [that] are undocumented deaths” were as “young as three years old”. The Band never corrected this with the “anomalies” wording until three years later, in May 2024.
Carleton also fails to mention that in September 2021 and October 2021 the Kamloops Indian Band referred to graves being found.
Because of a reliance on sources like Carleton, politicians have all piled on and are now trying to cancel Brodie for supporting truth.
These posts were all from NDP MLAs or neotribal elites. However, on March 6, 2025, Brennan Day, a Conservative MLA, posted the following.
Carleton also has once again entered into the fray.
This raises the question what is a “residential school denialist” and should one be “loud and proud” to be one?
