CBC pauses production on a show targeting conservatives and retired Mounties...
Watch my interview with Frances Widdowson and Lindsay Shepherd.
It seemed unbelievable when I started to hear about it last week. A TV show backed by CBC was using false pretences to lure people in for interviews.
In one case, they pranked retired RCMP officers and attempted to humiliate them.
Yesterday I was able to break the news that the show was production of the show was being paused. It hasn’t been cancelled, it may still air, but CBC is reviewing the material that has already been shot to determine whether to proceed.
In their statement to me, I’ll post the full statement below, they actually defended this style of show as a valid form of comedy.
On Tuesday, I interviewed Frances Widdowson, who exposed this all with the release of her video, and Lindsay Shepherd who was also targeted by this production company.
You can watch that video below.
For my column in the Toronto Sun, which we put on the front page, I also spoke with the head of the RCMP Veterans Association.
I really do think Minister Marc Miller needs to answer for this. Hopefully he sees how wrong this is and takes action.
If not, the Conservatives should call him before the Heritage Committee to explain, the head of CBC Entertainment should also be called.
Here’s the full interview.
And here is CBC’s full statement.
Northland Tales (working title) is an Indigenous-led unscripted, half-hour comedy series in early production for CBC Entertainment and APTN. For clarity, CBC News and APTN News have no involvement in this production or prior knowledge of it. The project was first pitched at the Indigenous Screen Summit - part of the Banff World Media Festival in 2024. 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. In this case, the Indigenous creators are using the format for Northland Tales. A form of comedy is being deployed to increase better understanding of historical injustices against Indigenous peoples and support truth and reconciliation in Canada.
It is important for us in the execution that this entertainment series does not negatively impact our news brand. With that context, we are currently pausing on production while we assess the existing footage.
Satire is not trapping real people into the position of twisting their words to try and get a reaction about their beliefs or actions. CBC has no idea what humor is, obviously neither does APTN. If they want to bring to light the treatment of indigenous people maybe they should start to look within their own community as 70% of the abuse and murder of their most vulnerable is committed by other indigenous peoples.
There is nothing humourous about this. It is a nasty attack on ordinary citizens. In addition to going after the poor judgement regarding content, someone needs to investigate the costs for this misguided production. People were flown across the country - all expenses paid -- in order to set up this elaborate ruse. So is the CBC budget so big that they no longer care about relative costs. This whole thing is a complete embarassment and shows the very poor decision making going on at CBC. Yes -- Marc Miller should be called to account.