Two women say they were targeted by a CBC- and APTN-produced comedy series that conducted prank interviews with people who have expressed controversial opinions about Canada’s residential schools.
Frances Widdowson and Lindsay Shepherd, two public figures who have been critical of the coverage of possible unmarked graves at the former Kamloops Indian Residential School site in B.C., shared social media posts this week detailing how they say they were tricked into prank interviews.
“[For] the CBC to participate in that, I think, is disgraceful,” Widdowson told CBC News in an interview from Calgary.
Both say they were the targets of the comedy series Northland Tales. According to the website of the Indigenous Screen Office, a national advocacy and funding organization serving First Nations, Inuit and Métis creators of screen content, Northland Tales is an “unscripted, half-hour comedy series where an Indigenous activist trio uses pranks as a form of social action,” in the vein of Borat and The Yes Men.
“With outrageous humour, they flip the script on modern and historical injustices against Indigenous peoples, offering a fresh, timely perspective on the prank genre,” says the ISO, which also contributed funding for the series.
The series, which has not aired yet, is a co-production between the CBC and the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN).
A memorial is seen outside a former residential school in Kamloops, B.C., on June 13, 2021. In May that year, the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation shared that preliminary findings from a ground-penetrating radar survey found some 200 potential unmarked graves on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School. (Jonathan Hayward/The Canadian Press)
In May 2021, the Tk’emlúps te Secwépemc First Nation shared that preliminary findings from a ground-penetrating radar survey indicated there could be around 200 potential unmarked graves on the grounds of the former Kamloops Indian Residential School.
Widdowson has referred to the discovery of suspected graves in Kamloops as “hysteria” and that the only way to know whether there are remains at the site is through excavation.
In 2022, Widdowson was fired as a professor at Mount Royal University in Calgary, partly over her criticism of what she called “dominant residential school narratives.”
An arbitrator later ruled that the decision to fire Widdowson was disproportionate, even if her conduct did warrant discipline.
She told CBC News she was approached in March of this year and asked to be a part of a docuseries by an organization that called itself Forge Media.
Widdowson said that earlier this month, they paid to fly her to Vancouver, where she was told she would be interviewed about how historical figures were portrayed. She said she was also told an actor dressed as Canada’s first prime minister, Sir John A. Macdonald, would join her and talk about how difficult it is to portray him and other historical figures in this day and age.
Widdowson said the interviewer in the studio was dressed in a very strange outfit and a blond wig and asked her very softball questions.
Somewhere between the half-hour and hour mark of the interview, she said, two “Aboriginal” men walked in and “dumped a whole bunch of children’s shoes” on the coffee table in front of her.
‘All part of some kind of setup’
She said at that point, the interviewer and the two men began glaring at her.
“And that’s when I knew that not only were they trying to sabotage the interview, that the interviewer was in on it, and is all part of some kind of setup,” she said.
Widdowson said she started asking if the shoe dump was an attempt to make a comparison with the Holocaust, and whether that was appropriate.
She said she tried to talk to them but they just glared, so she decided to use her cellphone to livestream the experience to social media.
My interrogation of “Mr. Smarmy” (Igor Vamos) – a set-up by a made up company called “Forge Media”, which pretended that I would be doing an interview for a “docuseries”. This outfit is evidently connected in some way to @CBC. pic.twitter.com/4xwbT03kfd
She said when she began livestreaming, some of the people involved in the interview walked out of the studio. Widdowson said she continued to interrogate one of the people involved, asking him what this was all about, who was paying for it and how much it cost.
She said he told her it was a social experiment, and that Indigenous people were paying for it.
‘Satirical prank’ used by broadcasters: CBC
Neither APTN nor any of the producers connected with Northland Tales could be reached for comment.
Chuck Thompson, a spokesperson for CBC, confirmed that the comedy series Northland Tales is in early production for CBC Entertainment and APTN, but that “CBC News and APTN News have no involvement in this production or prior knowledge of it.”
Thompson said the project was first pitched at the Indigenous Screen Summit, part of the Banff World Media Festival in 2024, and that CBC Entertainment joined APTN as a partner shortly thereafter.
“Social experiments and satirical prank shows are a long-established television format used by broadcasters and streamers around the world, including many public broadcasters,” he said in an email to CBC News.
Widdowson says the pranking genre usually goes after those in power who are “wielding their power in a way that is oppressive.”
“I’ve seen this happen with numerous individuals, and it can be quite a funny and a liberating thing to watch that, but I don’t think that’s what’s going on here.”
She suggested the CBC should not be using public money “to target citizens who are dissidents.”
‘An elaborate scheme’
Shepherd said on X she was also deceived by “social activists in an elaborate scheme.”
Last year, Shepherd was fired from her job as a communications officer for the B.C. Conservative caucus following a post on X in which she called the orange survivors’ flag — which honours residential school survivors — a “disgrace” and a “fake flag.”
On Tuesday, Shepherd posted on X that she had been interviewed in February by a production group “with what I now know has a fake name and fake identities” about her book A Day with Sir John A.
She said the group connected her with a fake company, which she said hired her to perform consulting work for them.
I found out recently that I was deceived by social activists in an elaborate scheme dating back to January. A production group with what I now know has a fake name and fake identities gave me a friendly interview about my book A Day with Sir John A, and about Sir John A… pic.twitter.com/ncLB0rABzt
“We had what I now know were fake meetings, fake documents, fake commercial shoot, fake prototype of a Sir John A. collectible,” Shepherd said on X.
“Then in a second filmed interview last week, they turned on me, and it was revealed to have all been a setup in order to demonize Sir John A. and smear me. It turns out this is a taxpayer-funded CBC and APTN project.”
In an email to CBC News, the Department of Canadian Heritage, which oversees the CBC, said CBC/Radio-Canada is an independent Crown corporation that makes its own decisions about programming and content.
“The department does not comment on unverified allegations about specific productions,” said Daniel Savoie, a spokesperson for Canadian Heritage.
But the details of the interviews the two women shared have sparked condemnation from some conservative politicians who questioned why the CBC would be involved in such a project.
Conservative B.C. MP Aaron Gunn wrote that the interviews were “something you would expect from a university fraternity, not a taxpayer-funded broadcaster.”
Conservative Ontario MP Melissa Lantsman posted that Canadian Identity and Culture Minister Marc Miller “has some questions to answer,” and that the CBC was “using your tax dollars to smear the very country it was built to serve, running deceptive sting operations.”
