Editor’s Note: This article contains several quotes from residential school denialists. Please read with care, and refer to the resources at the end of the piece.
Dallas Brodie, leader of the far-right OneBC party vehemently opposed to what it calls the “reconciliation industry” and notable for its denial of the experiences of residential school survivors, has plans to gather outside the Indian Residential School History and Dialogue Centre at 11 a.m. on Thursday. Significant participation in a nearby, alternative event at the same time focused on affirming the truths of residential school survivors is expected.
“I will be heading to UBC to engage in conversations with students and anyone else open to an exchange of opinions,” Brodie wrote in a post across multiple social media sites on Tuesday.
An online document attributed to an “autonomous” group of “students, staff, alumni and community members” is circulating campus and asking community members to come prepared with orange shirts, noisemaking instruments and signs all in support of “justice for residential school survivors.”
“We are not going to debate them, but we want a huge crowd to show them that they are not welcome, they will not be heard, and there are more of us than them.”
The Indigenous Student Society said back in December it was organizing a "peaceful counter demonstration" against Brodie's event. It's unclear whether this is the same or a different demonstration from the one referenced in the document.
In a statement to The Ubyssey, UBC’s Associate Vice-President of Communications Kurt Heinrich said the university respects peaceful protests and the “ability of all members of the UBC community and the public to engage in the free exchange of ideas and opinions.” But hate and intolerance have no place at the university, he said.
Heinrich went on to state that UBC’s position on truth and reconciliation is clear, outlined in the university’s Indigenous Strategic Plan and UBCO’s Declaration of Truth and Reconconciliation Commitments.
“We appreciate that while university community members may have different perspectives on important issues, we will be respectful of each other to ensure we maintain a safe academic community,” he said.
In an Instagram post, šxʷta:təχʷəm, the Indigenous Collegium, located in UBC's First Nations Longhouse, said it would be closed on Thursday to avoid becoming involved in the denialists' activities.
OneBC’s brief history
Brodie was kicked out of the B.C. Conservative Party last March for “her decision to publicly mock and belittle testimony from former residential school students, including by mimicking individuals recounting stories of abuses,” according to former party leader John Rustad. Before the last provincial election, Rustad himself — a former minister of Aboriginal relations and reconciliation under the last B.C. Liberal government — was called “a threat to First Nations and a threat to reconciliation” by a regional chief of the BC Assembly of First Nations.
After being kicked out, Brodie started her own party, OneBC, with Kelowna-Lake Country-Coldstream MLA Tara Armstrong in June. With two MLAs, the OneBC was granted official party status, which brings with it further opportunities to participate in parliamentary proceedings. The party spent much of 2025 railing against “globalism,” taxation, and the rights of Indigenous peoples, often attempting to erase history in the process.
It has been condemned by First Nations leaders, and among the things it stands for include a repeal of the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act, removing SOGI (sexual orientation and gender identity) programming from B.C.’s K-12 curriculum, ending what it calls “mass immigration” to the province and “lowering the threshold for recalling MLAs.” Brodie herself faces calls for her to resign from within her riding as MLA for Vancouver-Quilchena (which neighbours the riding UBC is located in, Vancouver-Point Grey).
The Armstrong-Brodie alliance fell apart over the recent exam season when the pair disagreed over whether or not a staffer with a reportedly antisemitic and white supremacist social media history should be terminated. On Dec. 14, the party said Brodie had been removed as leader — but on the 22nd, she was back after Armstrong and multiple board members decided to part ways with her. Today, Brodie sits as the party’s sole member, without official party status.
In November, the First Nations Leadership Council — a forum between various Indigenous groups in B.C. — called on Brodie to resign as an MLA, accusing her of promoting “residential school denialism and anti-Indigenous rhetoric.”
“The actions of [MLA] Brodie and her party, OneBC … have sown division, fear, and hatred,” the statement read.
“Such conduct undermines public trust in the Legislature as a body which is supposed to represent the interests of all those who live in this province without discrimination,” Regional Chief Terry Teegee of the BC Assembly of First Nations said in the statement.
“Ms. Brodie is the antithesis of reconciliation, and the Legislative Assembly would be better served without her,” Robert Philips, of the First Nations Summit Political Executive said in the same statement.
Brodie has run similar events at TRU and UVic
Brodie’s planned event at UBC is part of a string of recent American-style provocateur appearances at post-secondary campuses across the province.
Brodie, former teacher Jim McMurtry and former Mount Royal University professor Frances Widdowson held a denialist event on Nov. 12 at Thomas Rivers University in Kamloops.
McMurtry was fired for his controversial comments about the residential school system. He has continued to deny the existence of mass graves at residential schools.
Widdowson was fired from Mount Royal University in 2021, after backlash over her comments about the residential school system and the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement. She has been quoted saying BLM has “destroyed” the university, and touted the educational benefits of residential schools.
In a statement after her firing, the university said that “academic freedom does not justify harassment or discrimination.”
A week before the event, TRU’s President Arini (who goes by a single name) wrote in a notice to the school’s community that the event was “unsanctioned” and, without prior approval, would violate university policy. The university “reminded the individuals involved” that they did not have permission to hold the event on its property and “issued a notice under the B.C. Trespass Act,” Arini wrote. “[Thompson Rivers University] will respond proportionately and in accordance with policy and law.”
In another notice two days before the event, Arini reaffirmed TRU “stands with survivors.”
The Wren, a local digital newspaper in Kamloops, reported that a group of TRU students and Indigenous faculty showed up to resist denialists.
On Dec. 2, Brodie and OneBC supporters held another unsanctioned event, this time at the University of Victoria. The day before, UVic released a statement affirming the school’s commitment to “uphold ʔetalnəw̓əl̓,” a SENĆOŦEN word meaning respect for the “rights of one another and being in right relationship with all things.” The statement notes an upcoming “divisive” event, and that its organizers never requested space on campus.
“As such, this event is not sanctioned by our university and is not authorized.”
According to the CBC, the event ended when police arrested Widdowson under the Trespass Act.
Notably, unlike TRU and UVic, UBC has not invoked trespassing in relation to Brodie’s plans. As of press time, UBC’s president’s office, provost’s office, media relations nor campus security websites have not published any statement regarding the event.
UVic’s student newspaper, The Martlet, reported that “hundreds” showed up to oppose the group. The Times Colonist gave a more specific estimate of around 900. One of the organizers told The Martlet the community’s message was focused on affirming the truth about residential schools. He characterized their gathering as a “peaceful non-engagement.”
UBC’s Johnny Mack, academic director of the Indian Residential School History & Dialogue Centre, alluded to “events unfolding at another B.C. campus over the past week” in a Dec. 3 statement, where he implored individuals not feed into rhetoric stoking residential school denialism.
He decried the attempts to “provoke controversy around the history of residential schools in order to draw Indigenous communities and institutions into an exhausting cycle of reaction,” stating that the history of the residential school system does not require debate.
This history, he declared, “is established through the voices of survivors, through government and church records, through the extensive findings of national commissions and inquiries, and through the ongoing work of Indigenous communities who have carried these truths across generations.”
Instead of focusing on the controversy, there should be “a refusal to let harmful rhetoric dictate the terms of engagement, and a deliberate movement toward what matters most.”
“Turning sideways here means refusing to be pulled into arguments that deny or diminish these truths. But it also means something more: turning toward the responsibilities that this history places upon us.”
OneBC did not respond to The Ubyssey's questions about the details of their event.
The Indian Residential School Survivors Society provides 24-7 crisis support for persons experiencing trauma in relation to residential schools. The KUU-US Crisis Line Society also offers 24-7 support for people in B.C. Dial 250-723-4050 for adults, 250-723-2040 for youth, or toll-free at 1-800-588-8717.
UBC has specific programs to support Indigenous students’ mental well-being.
