In her recent interview with Kat Kanada, Frances Widdowson “tooted her own horn” about being one of the first people to sound the alarm about the Kamloops case. In June 2021, a few weeks after the Kamloops Indian Band announced that the “remains of 215 children” had been “confirmed”, Widdowson began organizing an event called “Can We Discuss Those Unmarked Graves”. The event featured Widdowson, Brian Giesbrecht (a retired judge who studies aboriginal issues), and Rodney Clifton (a professor emeritus from the University of Manitoba who had worked at two residential schools). The event was moderated by Paul Viminitz, a philosophy professor from the University of Lethbridge.
The event was held on July 10, 2021 via Zoom.
When Widdowson announced the event on social media, she was castigated by Sean Carleton (a professor from the University of Manitoba) and Daniel Heath Justice (a literature professor from the University of British Columbia).
Shortly after the announcement of the Kamloops Indian Band of the “confirmation” of “remains”, Sean Carleton had referred to the site as a “mass grave”.
At the time, Widdowson was in the midst of a mobbing campaign that was ostracizing her and trying to have her removed from Mount Royal University. This campaign began in July 2020 (one year before the Kamloops announcement), when MRU indigenous studies professor Gabrielle Lindstrom (who now goes by her maiden name Gabrielle Weasel Head) became upset about Widdowson arguing that the residential schools provided some educational benefits and were not genocidal.
The mobbing against Widdowson was given additional momentum in September 2020, when Mount Royal University’s General Faculties Council had passed a motion saying that the residential schools were genocidal, resulting in the supposed “student led” group, MRU Racial Advocacy, asserting that “genocide denial of residential school [should] have no place” at the university.
In May 2021, therefore, the announcement by the Kamloops Indian Band about the “remains of 215 children” being “confirmed” was seen as evidence of children being “murdered”, and thus delegitimizing Widdowson’s position about the residential schools.
By June 14, 2021, members of the mob were openly calling for Widdowson to be fired.
On June 26, 2021, Alanna Smith published an article in the Calgary Herald stating that Widdowson had “‘dehumanized’ the suffering of residential school survivors” based on an interview with an anonymous source.
In arbitration, Widdowson found out that the source was Gabrielle Lindstrom.
