One arrested at unsanctioned Victoria protest to dispute residential school deaths
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VICTORIA – Saanich Police say one person has been arrested for trespassing at the University of Victoria after members of the OneBC Party including MLA Dallas Brodie tried to hold an event without permission to dispute accounts of unmarked graves at residential schools.
Video footage on social media shows scuffles on the grounds of the university, where Brodie, OneBC candidate Jim McMurty and former Mount Royal University professor Frances Widdowson tried to stage the event.
The footage shows Saanich Police escorting Widdowson away.
A spokesman for the department couldn’t confirm Widdowson was the arrested person, who was later released and issued a violation under the provincial Trespass Act, not a criminal charge.
The university says organizers of the event didn’t go through its booking process and were escorted off the property by law enforcement.
The university statement says events require time to develop a safety plan, and it does not limit debate or prohibit “reasonable exercise of freedom of expression on campus.”
Other video on social media shows members of the OneBC group being confronted by others, with one person slapping away a camera, amid clouds of orange smoke.
The party posted that one of its volunteers was assaulted at the event, “yet they arrested Frances Widdowson for peaceful speech.”
Widdowson was wearing a sandwich board that said “Denial or Truth?” and “What remains?” before being led away by police.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Dec. 2, 2025.