First Nations chief's rape "wish" against Frances Widdowson condemned
MLA Tara Armstrong presses B.C. government to condemn remarks by Esk’etemc Chief Charlene Belleau targeting academic Frances Widdowson.
A heated exchange broke out in the British Columbia legislature after MLA Tara Armstrong cited video footage of a chief calling for sexual violence against a university professor.
Armstrong told the legislature that a video had surfaced showing Chief Charlene Belleau, a member of the Esk’etemc First Nation, comments about rape directed towards academic and Indigenous issues author, Frances Widdowson.
Tara Armstrong@TaraArmstrongBC
An indigenous chief just said that Professor Frances Widdowson should be beaten and r*ped.
I asked the NDP if that fit their definition of reconciliation, but Radical Niki Sharma refused to answer because the question was “offensive.”
7:43 PM · Apr 16, 2026 · 84.9K Views
218 Replies · 712 Reposts · 3.07K Likes
“I wish that our people could grab you, drag you over to the Kamloops Residential School, put you into the basement, speak our language to you, beat you, rape you, hurt you, and maybe you’d understand,” Armstrong quoted Belleau as saying.
Juno News@junonewscom
Chief Charlene Belleau on her interaction with @FrancesWiddows1 at Thompson Rivers University:
"I wish our people could... drag you over to the Kamloops Residential School... beat you, r*pe you... and maybe you would understand what our people went through".
9:30 PM · Apr 16, 2026 · 18.8K Views
97 Replies · 58 Reposts · 152 Likes
