BC MLA Says Assault Charges Are Forthcoming After Altercation on University of Victoria Campus

BC MLA and OneBC Leader Dallas Brodie in Vancouver on Oct. 15, 2024. The Canadian Press/Darryl Dyck

BC MLA and OneBC Leader Dallas Brodie says assault charges should be soon filed involving an altercation at the University of Victoria where she and others went to engage students in discussions about residential schools.

Brodie told The Epoch Times that the altercation occurred when she, former professor Frances Widdowson, and others were on campus on Dec. 2, while police were talking with Widdowson.

The MLA said that a protester “came leaping through the air” and grabbed a sign from someone in their group.

She also said that smoke bombs were thrown at her chief of staff, and another person had a camera knocked out of his hand.

Brodie said it was at this point that the police began yelling at her and the others to get back. When they asked if the police were going to lay charges, she said they were told officers would talk to the man.

She says that a member of her group, Andrew Brougham, is looking at laying assault charges against the individual who was involved in the altercation.

“I think that what we’ve watched is a complete breakdown in civil discourse on our university campuses. It is appalling to me that young people are not allowed to hear a separate point of view,” Brodie said. “At university, your mind is supposed to be opened to different ways of seeing the world, different political theories, all of them.”

The university previously told The Epoch Times that certain individuals arrived on campus on Dec. 2 with the “intention of speaking publicly” without prior arrangement with the school. The university said in the emailed statement the individuals “were informed that their event was not sanctioned to proceed” and confirmed they were escorted off school grounds by law enforcement.

That day, Widdowson was arrested on campus and taken to the police station. She was later released and issued a $115 fine for trespassing.

Widdowson was removed from her faculty position at Mount Royal University in Calgary in 2021. The removal came after she spoke out against “wokeism” and identity politics on her website and on social media, often clashing online with colleagues.

Brodie said that she and the others went on campus to speak about how no bodies have been found at the Kamloops residential school despite the claim in 2021 by the Tk’emlups te Secwepemc First Nation that ground-penetrating radar had found the remains of 215 children at the site.

“[We wanted to talk] about how important it is to have the truth,” she said. “We’re very concerned about how this has shamed Canada, and that a terrible accusation has been made, and this has had Canada made into a global pariah, labeled a genocidal state.”

University of Victoria acting president and vice-chancellor Robina Thomas said in a statement to students and staff that the university honours “the lost children and Survivors of residential schools, their families and communities.”

“I raise my hands with the deepest of respect - Huy tseep g'u Siem - thank you to all the respected ones who showed up to turn their backs on a potentially harmful unsanctioned event at UVic earlier today,” Thomas said on Dec. 2.