This is the first post in a three post series about the University of British Columbia’s advocacy entities. The second and third posts will be on the First Nations House of Learning and the Department of Anthropology respectively. These advocacy entities have been constantly misleading faculty, students and the public about clandestine burials at Kamloops and other residential schools.
In 2013, the UBC President at the time, Stephen Toope, said that he was “sorry” for not distancing his university from the residential schools.
In this venue, Toope announced that money was being raised to build a Centre that would be an affiliate of the National Centre for Truth and Reconciliation in Winnipeg. In 2016 “the UBC Board of Governors approved the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre (IRSHDC) for construction, and on September 12, 2016, President Santa Ono announced the start of construction”. It opened in April 2018 with Mary Ellen Turpel-Lafond as its first academic director.
UBC stated that the Centre had three purposes – to allow “Survivors” to access records, to enable students and the public to develop “shared knowledge”, and to have gatherings where “dialogue” could take place. The second purpose is described thusly:
At the opening of the Centre, the UBC President offered a “statement of apology for UBC’s involvement in the system that supported the operation of the Indian Residential Schools”.
May 29, 2021 – Tricia Logan, who would become the Acting Director of the Centre in 2022, talks about the “discovery” of children who were buried at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School and people “honour[ing] the children who passed away”. The interview is posted on the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre’s website.
On September 27, 2021, Turpel-Lafond, the Academic Director of the Centre, discussed how the Centre was “not afraid” to use the “human rights language” of the residential schools having “genocidal intent”.
Then, in the Question and Answer session, Academic Director Turpel-Lafond asserted that “after t’kemlups shared the findings about the missing children, the 215 children, I think the fact that non-indigenous people in Kamloops all through B.C. started to spontaneously in May started to wear orange…it’s an acknowledgement, it’s a recognition…especially since May…British Columbians want to wear orange, which is pretty special”. This was two months after Sarah Beaulieu had stated that only 200 anomalies had been detected, and excavations were needed to confirm remains.
Later in the Q and A, Phyllis Webstad, the initiator of “Orange Shirt Day” years earlier, revealed that Chief Casimir’s announcement about “The 215” resulted in Bill C-5 – An Act to amend the Bills of Exchange Act, the Interpretation Act and the Canada Labour Code (National Day for Truth and Reconciliation) – receiving immediate Royal Assent. The September 30 holiday, therefore, was a direct result of the false claim made by the Kamloops Indian Band that the “remains of 215 children” had been “confirmed”, and some of these children “were as young as three years old”.
For the “truth and reconciliation” holiday in September 2021, UBC prepared a video featuring Turpel-Lafond, Dr. Lesley Cormack, Deputy Vice-Chancellor and Principal UBC Okanagan, UBC President Santa Ono, and UBC Chancellor Steven Point. Chancellor Point asserted at the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre that “as of late…the Orange Shirt Day has taken on a different meaning. In Kamloops this year 215 unmarked graves of students was found, bringing in a new time, a new era of astonishing revelations coming from residential schools”.
On March 17, 2022 – eight months AFTER Sarah Beaulieu’s Presentation, Tricia Logan, the next Academic Director of the Indian Residential School Research Centre gave a presentation at a conference in Norway. She states the following: “It was last summer…near the Kamloops Indian Residential School…the community initiated research on the former site of the residential school using Ground Penetrating Radar and identified 215 burials that were unmarked right next to the residential school”.
In June 2022, Turpel-Lafond resigned as the Academic Director due to questions being raised about her aboriginal ancestry and because she had made other misleading statements in various contexts.
Tricia Logan became the interim Academic Director of the Centre in 2022 to replace Turpel-Lafond.
On September 30, 2024, Tricia Logan, as the Centre’s Academic Director, participated in a bizarre interview with the CBC where she “says that church and government officials knew of the trauma being inflicted at residential schools even in the early years of their existence”. Logan, however, provides no specifics about this. She asserts that doctors, clergy, administrators, and teachers were “reporting what was happening inside residential schools” and that these reports “were not listened to”. About student illnesses and deaths and incidences of abuse, she maintains that “they would report very honestly what was happening” and that children reported this and “sometimes they would report back up the chain” and they were punished and “things didn’t change”. There is no evidence provided of information “being suppressed”.
Presumably in response to the release of Special Interlocutor Kimberly Murray’s report, the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre stated that “The history of the Indian Residential system in Canada is not a matter of opinion or debate”, and that the “physical evidence of unmarked burials [is]…well-established and publicly accessible”. It goes on to state that “Denial of Residential School history is a harmful act that disregards the lived experiences of Survivors and their families”. The document is undated.
Tricia Logan remained the Interim Academic Director until May 2025. Before May 2025, Logan commented on how applying the concept of “settler colonial genocide” was now more common in universities.
In May 2025, Johnny Mack became the Academic Director.
As a law professor at UBC, Mack argues for “draw[ing] law out of our stories” to develop indigenous legal traditions. His answer to what “reconciliation” looks like is “land back”.
Shortly after August 15, 2025 (the statement is not dated), the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre repeated the false claim that “unmarked graves” had been “confirmed” at the Sechelt and Kuper Island Residential Schools. The Centre stated that they were “deeply saddened by the confirmation of these truths”.
The Sechelt case is discussed in the documentary that Widdowson produced with Simon Hergott, “What Remains”.
The Kuper Island case involved UBC archaeologist Andrew Martindale, a professor in the Anthropology Department, who has provided the following misleading assertions below. UBC’s Anthropology Department will be the subject of a third video that Widdowson will create about this university.
In response to the events on December 2, 2025, when Frances Widdowson was arrested for attempting to ask the question “What Remains [about ‘The 215’ Kamloops claim]?”, Mack argued that “The history of the Indian Residential School system does not require debate” and that it is “necessary to say clearly that this system was genocidal in both its intentions and effects”.
This was supported by another leader of UBC’s advocacy elements – Joely Viveiros, the Acting Director of the First Nations House of Learning. This UBC entity will be the subject of a second video created by Widdowson.
UBC’s Indian Residential School History has been been misleading faculty, students and the public with false claims about clandestine burials at former residential schools. UBC has a responsibility to correct the record. Widdowson will be pressuring the university to do this on January 22, 2026 when she plans to have informal discussions on campus about “What Remains?” and “Denial or Truth?”
![UBC’s First Nations House of Learning [Coddling]](https://wokeacademy.info/wp-content/uploads/2026/01/first-nations-house-of-learning-150x150.png)
Frances Widdowson deserves high praise for her work righting the great wrong done to Canadians by the Indians. The genocidal murdering and mass burial of children by IRS teachers and nuns claim is obviously false but that hasn’t stopped them from stealing millions of taxpayer dollars with the help of the liberals who are just in it for votes.