CBC pausing production on satirical Indigenous show

CBC is pausing production on a prank comedy series after the broadcaster was called out when two women who have expressed controversial opinions about Canada’s residential schools claimed they were targeted by the show.

“It is important for us in the execution that this entertainment series does not negatively impact our news brand,” Chuck Thompson, a spokesperson for CBC, said in a statement.

“With that context, we are currently pausing on production while we assess the existing footage.”

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., had said they were tricked into prank interviews by 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.

The series, which has not aired yet, is a co-production between the CBC and the Aboriginal Peoples Television Network (APTN).

“As a broadcasting partner, APTN respects CBC’s decision and is in ongoing communication with them regarding next steps,” Joëlle Saltel for APTN Media, said in an email to CBC News.

Saltel said while APTN remains committed to supporting Indigenous storytelling it did “not have additional details to share.”

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.

In an interview with CBC News on Wednesday, Widdowson said she actually hopes the show is produced and that the footage of her is used so people can judge for themselves the merits of the series.

“We don’t want to censor people, and we don’t want to cancel these kinds of programs,” she said. “We’d like to critique them and expose them.”

“I want to see the result because I want to have the opportunity to laugh, or not laugh, and critique it, or not critique it. More censorship is not the answer to these problems.”

CBC needs to be ‘honest with themselves’: Shepherd

Shepherd, reacting to CBC’s decision to pause production, posted on X that the public broadcaster needs to be “honest with themselves about what this project is (a vehicle to shame people in certain careers like policing and ridicule people with heterodox views, all using taxpayer dollars) when they decide to proceed with this show or not. 

“I call on the CBC to release a thorough statement telling us what exactly they saw in the footage they reviewed once they have done so.”

In a recent interview with CBC News, Widdowson said she was approached in March of this year and asked to be a part of a docuseries. She said the producers paid to fly her to Vancouver, where she was told she would be interviewed about how historical figures were portrayed. 

She said the interview started out with “softball questions” but at one point two “Aboriginal” men walked in and “dumped a whole bunch of children’s shoes” on the coffee table in front of her.

Realized it was a ‘setup’

She said at that point, the interviewer and the two men began glaring at her and that she realized the interview was part of a “setup.” She said she then decided to use her cellphone to livestream the experience on social media.

Shepherd, meanwhile, said 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.

“We had what I now know were fake meetings, fake documents, fake commercial shoot, fake prototype of a Sir John A. collectible,” Shepherd posted on X.

She said in a second filmed interview, it was revealed to have “all been a setup in order to demonize Sir John A. and smear me.”

Thompson, the CBC spokesperson, confirmed last week in an email to CBC News that Northland Tales had been in early production for CBC Entertainment and APTN, but that CBC News and APTN News “had no involvement in this production or prior knowledge of it.”

He said then that social experiments and satirical prank shows “are a long-established television format used by broadcasters and streamers around the world, including many public broadcasters.”

Sean Carleton, an assistant professor of Indigenous studies at the University of Manitoba, said he believes the CBC’s decision to pause production out of concerns that Northland Tales could hurt the news brand “makes no sense.”

It would be like, if there was a news controversy, and they decided to pause filming on Murdoch Mysteries,” he said. “One’s drama, one’s the news.

“Everybody who does not have an ideological axe to grind against the CBC, understands that a comedy show is not news,” Carleton said.

He said the decision to pause has given people like Widdowson and Shepherd a “victim complex and actually draws more attention to the things that they’re doing.”

“Is comedy a legitimate way of making fun of the very odd ideas that these folks have? I mean, it is an option,” Carleton said. “But now the decision to pause this has given them the upper hand to say, ‘Look, we’re being deceived.'”