Juno News - May 21, 2026


CBC forced to pull controversial ＂prank show＂ targeting conservatives

Mentioned
Berna John A. Lindsay Shepard Francis Whittowson Bill C-63 Rachel Thomas John A. Macdonald Southland Tales Jerry Amarnick Andrew Lawton Clint Josie Igor Vamos Aaron Gunn
U.S. suspends key defence ties with Canada Banned speaker urges Muslims to weaponize AI for Palestinian activism

Episode Stats


Length

20 minutes

Words per minute

168.91

Word count

3,382

Sentence count

118


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

The CBC is pulling the plug on production of a satirical show that targeted conservatives. Critics have lambasted the public broadcaster for staging an elaborate sting aimed at embarrassing supporters of Canada s first prime minister, John A. MacDonald. The show used fake names and bogus companies to lure people into situations that would leave them open to ridicule and embarrassment.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 There are signs the Kearney government is buckling under the pressure to soften its mass surveillance bill, C-22.
00:00:12.300 If passed in its current form, the bill allows government to intercept Canadians' private communications.
00:00:19.320 Opponents include tech companies, civil libertarians, and members of the U.S. Congress.
00:00:24.240 The National Post quoted a public safety official who said,
00:00:28.140 there's a misunderstanding about the bill and changes might be needed.
00:00:33.180 Public Safety Canada is also being accused of misleading Canadians
00:00:36.720 after claiming that all G7 and Five Eyes partners
00:00:40.600 had laws on the books similar to Bill C-22.
00:00:45.260 The statement was fact-checked on X with this community note.
00:00:49.620 The EU Court of Justice has ruled twice that general
00:00:53.560 and indiscriminate mandatory data retention by service providers is unlawful,
00:01:00.260 meaning most EU countries lack equivalent frameworks to Bill C-22's metadata retention requirements.
00:01:10.040 The CBC is pulling the plug on production of a satirical show that targeted conservatives.
00:01:15.840 Critics have lambasted the public broadcaster for staging an elaborate sting
00:01:20.160 aimed at embarrassing supporters of Canada's first prime minister, John A. MacDonald.
00:01:25.800 CBC is hitting pause on the show Northland Tales over concerns the show might damage
00:01:32.500 the broadcaster's news brand.
00:01:35.140 The show used fake names and bogus companies to lure people into situations that would
00:01:40.920 leave them open to ridicule and embarrassment.
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00:02:51.380 you're prepared. It's better to be safe than sorry. Well, one of the targets of that sting
00:02:55.860 operation is our next guest, the author of a children's book called A Day with Sir John A.
00:03:02.300 Lindsay Shepard. Welcome to the show, Lindsay. Hi, thanks for having me. Great to have you on
00:03:07.280 the show once again. Maybe talk a little bit about your feelings regarding the fact that CBC
00:03:12.540 now has pulled the plug or at least press pause temporarily on this show, Northland Tales. This
00:03:19.260 was the show that targeted you among others. Um, what are your thoughts? Yeah. So for the pause,
00:03:26.360 um, I mean, I, I saw this narrative developing on social media that conservatives are trying
00:03:31.000 to cancel this, this show and they don't actually believe in free speech because they're trying to
00:03:35.640 cancel this. Um, I don't really think that's an accurate recalling of what's happening here.
00:03:39.940 I'm not necessarily in favor of canceling the show
00:03:44.040 because I think that their true colors will come out
00:03:48.320 if the footage does end up being produced into the show
00:03:51.560 and it's aired by CBC and APTN
00:03:53.260 because I saw their intentions as so malicious and so sinister
00:03:57.780 and it is my belief that that will be revealed if the show comes out
00:04:01.860 So we don't know for sure
00:04:04.560 despite the fact that the show has been placed on pause
00:04:07.840 I mean, the episode which involved you and I guess these John A. figurines that might still air is that you're understanding that's the case.
00:04:18.260 I think, you know, they're putting it on pause. So I guess they want people to forget about it or they want less public pressure.
00:04:26.160 So they're reviewing the footage. And, you know, I said I call on the CBC to, you know, if they need to make a statement telling us what they saw in the footage and be honest about it.
00:04:37.840 because I said this show is a vehicle to ridicule people with heterodox views and shame people who
00:04:45.180 went into careers like policing. That's what it is. And so let's be honest about what the show is.
00:04:50.560 It's not a harmless prank show where we can all laugh and be friends at the end. And yes,
00:04:55.840 they keep repeating this line that, you know, pranks and social experiments are long established.
00:05:01.480 yes but everyone recognizes that this went beyond that and this was elaborate it was mean-spirited
00:05:08.240 to the core and so it was just very different and people are picking up on that even before
00:05:12.860 the show comes out just by seeing the receipts that we're producing receipts yeah the emails
00:05:20.400 that we're posting those of us who were lured into this show that francis widdowson is posting
00:05:25.560 that I have posted. Now we have a former RCMP officer, Clinton Jaws, who went public.
00:05:31.800 His receipts are out there too now. So, yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of questions about
00:05:37.220 whether this is appropriate programming for a public broadcaster as well. I mean,
00:05:43.360 is this what we pay a billion and a half dollars for, I guess, is to have the broadcaster
00:05:49.180 use its resources essentially to target people who may be critical of the government that supports
00:05:57.140 the CBC. So, I mean, exactly. But the reason they came out and did it, at least part of my
00:06:04.500 understanding is that they didn't want it confused with their news brand. In other words, they were
00:06:09.520 afraid that somehow people would think that this was a news operation documentary. But it has
00:06:17.280 struck me that there actually is not that much of a difference between their news and what their
00:06:22.500 news does, which is targeting conservatives and largely running interference for the liberals,
00:06:28.160 and what this show does, which is targeting people like you who have also been critical
00:06:32.520 of the government. What do you think? Yeah, I think the CBC needs to be upfront about
00:06:37.940 what the involvement was with their Vancouver studio, because all of these
00:06:42.580 prank you know bad faith interviews took place in Vancouver and the RCMP officers those their
00:06:50.820 interviews took place at a CBC studio in Vancouver and yes independent producers can rent those
00:06:56.880 studios but in one case with an RCMP officer who was pranked she was told that there were two dozen
00:07:03.840 journalists in the audience in the studio and so when you're at a CBC studio you're told they're
00:07:09.400 journalists i mean um this is it gets a bit strange and and i know that my interview which
00:07:15.160 took place in may so after the rcmp officers it was also supposed to take place at cbc vancouver
00:07:20.720 but something happened with the relationship between cbc and the producers and um so i hope
00:07:27.080 we can get some clarity on what what happened between that because the interview was moved
00:07:31.360 after yeah well i mean we could speculate on that do you think that the relationship soured
00:07:37.160 when maybe the producers tried to use news type news resources in this sort of blurring the lines
00:07:46.860 between what they were doing and what the news department is doing? You think that might have
00:07:51.480 happened? Well, I think it can tell us what CBC actually might have known because in the case of
00:07:57.680 the RCMP interviews, the RCMP officers that were pranked, their phones were taken away and they
00:08:04.760 were told by the producers this is CBC Vancouver studio policy I don't know if that's true but if
00:08:10.780 it's not they're representing the policy of CBC Vancouver right and so um yeah I think CBC should
00:08:18.900 should tell us did were you looking at this and you had questions raised so and and the thing is
00:08:26.300 Igor Vamos who's one of the yes men who is behind this this whole scenario he did tell me you know
00:08:34.620 oh, CBC, you know, they wouldn't let us film there because their news division has too much
00:08:41.200 control over the content. So maybe he actually was giving a hint as to what happened, but he was
00:08:46.980 using a fake identity, a fake company. Everything he said to me was not true. So I don't know how
00:08:52.200 much we can trust that. What would you like to see come out of this? I mean, there's been a little
00:08:59.060 bit of time passed now. You've been able to look at this from a little further back, examine the
00:09:06.900 events that led to you being, I don't know, pranked, I guess, or punked, whatever you want to use,
00:09:13.280 where they contacted you, hired you as a consultant, paid you $1,500 in order to help them
00:09:20.380 out supposedly to create this figurine and the upshot of it all was to tarnish johnny mcdonald's
00:09:30.540 reputation with quotes from you know many years ago obviously maybe some of those quotes are
00:09:37.740 inappropriate in comparison to what we would say today but in so doing eventually target you i mean
00:09:43.640 that's essentially what they were trying to do right to ridicule you to denigrate you and your
00:09:49.200 reputation because you also are a supporter of johnny mcdonald um what would you see come out
00:09:55.220 of all of this what do you think would be an appropriate upshot of this i think a lot of it
00:10:02.880 it'll depend on whether the show airs or not um the fact that this went public before it came out
00:10:10.420 kind of changes the sequence of events i suppose um so if there's a final product i know a lot of
00:10:18.100 people who were wrapped up in this um i mean the rcmp officers there's the aspect of ptsd and how
00:10:24.420 this was um you know triggered p ptsd in at least one of them really yes that's what i've heard yes
00:10:34.660 so one of the officers that was pranked says that he has suffered ptsd as a result of this
00:10:41.540 that person who has not gone public yet i don't know if they will be able to said that they have
00:10:46.740 been involved in fraud before and so this and the one of the you know brass at the rcmp did say
00:10:53.700 the producers here weren't taking into account the you know that a lot of officers do struggle with
00:10:59.220 ptsd um so well it sounds like there could be grounds for a lawsuit there i mean you see that
00:11:07.780 as a possible having you for yourself and others who are pranked here i i see a lot of people saying
00:11:15.380 that this was criminal because they let's you know they have my sin number because they were
00:11:22.420 employing me they went to my house so they know where i live they went to my place of residence
00:11:28.580 they have my phone number they know personal details about my family all this and um
00:11:36.500 so and other people who were wrapped up in this i mean they're concerned about defamation
00:11:41.940 so that will depend on if the show actually airs but you know i mean jerry amarnick was an author
00:11:48.820 he wrote sleep woking and it's about historical revisionism you know he said in an interview he
00:11:55.060 did that all options are are on the table right legal or otherwise okay so you're still weighing
00:12:02.420 your options in terms of actions that you might take as a result of all of this yeah i mean when
00:12:08.900 you're implicated in something like this i i'm still processing it because we still don't know
00:12:14.020 the full story and um so it's i guess i'm looking to other people for solutions i don't know what's
00:12:21.220 fair is it fair to say you know because this was taxpayer funded okay you have to pay all the money
00:12:27.300 back i don't know if that's fair to say to the producers i'm not really sure i've never been
00:12:31.700 involved in anything like this i've actually never been a victim of any kind of fraud or
00:12:35.940 scam or anything so yeah i mean the uh conservative party rachel thomas the
00:12:42.980 member of parliament has called on the president of the cbc to come forward and explain
00:12:48.660 exactly what happened talk about this do you anticipate that maybe some answers might be
00:12:53.860 forthcoming if the president of the cbc were to step forward and issue a statement yeah i think
00:13:00.740 that should happen i think because what i was explaining earlier with the relationship between
00:13:06.980 the cbc vancouver studio and and the producers i think maybe they did know more than they're
00:13:12.260 letting on right now and so i do call on them to be honest about what they knew um when they
00:13:19.860 review the footage i hope they will tell us what they saw but as for the decision they make as to
00:13:26.100 whether they will air it or not um you know if they air it i'll make a youtube video giving my
00:13:31.380 behind the scenes version of what actually happened if they don't air it then i guess
00:13:36.500 that's that but i know francis widowson who was another person who was wrapped up in this and um
00:13:42.340 lured she is also saying you know air it because i think she and i feel um like we can defend what
00:13:51.300 we said and yes this is a show where they will edit and they will twist and um but i we we live
00:14:00.580 in a different media environment right francis widows and i have youtube channels we can post
00:14:05.060 our version of what happened our behind the scenes look of what actually happened
00:14:09.460 um so that's the kind of reality we're living in now i mean part of why this went public is
00:14:15.780 because Frances, when she was at that studio doing the interview, she turned the camera,
00:14:21.940 she brought out her phone and they did take our phones or just kind of left them backstage.
00:14:27.620 But she said, hey, I need my medication. Can you bring my bag? And then she started live streaming
00:14:32.980 The Prankster. And then for myself, I started looking into Instagram and social media accounts
00:14:40.020 and then reverse image searching who was involved in this so i think maybe they weren't aware that
00:14:47.140 or like maybe they thought we weren't uh as i don't know but we live in a different environment
00:14:53.300 where we can do stuff like that to figure out what really happened it's not like we're just
00:14:57.300 going to sit around and wait for this to air and then be so embarrassed we can actually do something
00:15:02.820 about it yeah i mean i'd be surprised if the cbc aired this production and of course then we
00:15:10.020 Well, it would be nice to find out how much money was spent on this, you know, tens of
00:15:15.100 thousands, hundreds of thousands of dollars.
00:15:17.260 Oh, their budget was two and a half to five million.
00:15:20.540 How much?
00:15:21.660 2.5 to 5 million.
00:15:24.060 Wow.
00:15:24.560 For one of the people that we searched that's involved with the production company, NLT1
00:15:29.820 Productions.
00:15:30.760 That is wild.
00:15:31.960 Literally five, as much as $5 million may have been spent on this show.
00:15:37.920 Yes.
00:15:38.320 And I mean, because a lot of the people involved are not from Canada. Yes, there are some Indigenous people involved with this production company, and there was funding through the Indigenous Screening Office. But they also brought in people from the UK, from the US. And before the producer, Amy, privated her Instagram account, because she saw I was looking at everything on her stories, I mean, they were living in an Airbnb, like a beautiful Airbnb in Squamish or something.
00:16:03.740 they were like living it up um and i i saw you know some peeks at what they were doing they
00:16:09.800 they had uh graves they had coffins being dug up at the beach coffins being dug up in the dirt
00:16:16.120 they have impersonators of the royal family impersonators of sir john a so it's it's really
00:16:21.040 and everyone you know clinton jaws who was one of the rcmp officers myself francis widdowson
00:16:26.560 we all noted how many people were involved in this there are so many people when we stepped
00:16:32.220 into the studio, you're greeted by dozens of people, you know, 20, something like that.
00:16:37.900 Wow. And considering the private information which they obtained from you through false
00:16:44.040 pretenses, under false pretenses, I mean, have you at least reached out to the president of the CBC
00:16:49.100 or representatives of that organization and say, you know, are there guarantees here that this will
00:16:54.460 not be used against me since you have access to my sin number? You know where I live.
00:16:59.620 um have you done any of that or is that a possibility well i think what i'm more concerned
00:17:06.900 about in respect to that and by the way they paid me in cash so you know i guess they did
00:17:13.280 ultimately direct deposit something a reimbursement for a flight but the the main money was given in
00:17:19.140 cash even though they want it all they asked many times for the direct deposit info i mean
00:17:24.680 because they're operating under fake identities, fake companies, fake names, I don't know where
00:17:29.660 the information has gone. And there are so many people involved in this, like I said, at least
00:17:34.240 probably 40. And so I don't know, you know, how far is my information being spread? And on the
00:17:40.080 form, I asked for a copy from them on the form where I put my sin number. One of their producers
00:17:46.300 had to countersign the release form, and they didn't put a name. And I said, who is this? And
00:17:52.480 they wouldn't tell me. So I don't know where my information has gone because they won't tell me
00:17:58.020 who has it, whose size contracts. Yeah. That's a problem. I mean, in a case like that, I would be
00:18:04.760 tempted to call the authorities because you have no idea who these people are and they have your
00:18:10.420 private, your banking information. I mean, they do. That is not people who don't like me. That's
00:18:18.100 the thing yeah not my friends yeah exactly like they're you know they have information they could
00:18:25.580 dox you right because they know where you live yeah i mean even if you know the spouse of one
00:18:31.940 of these people who is really radical you know sees this they could who knows right yeah or give
00:18:38.620 the information to somebody else yeah so i'm going to leave the last word to you lindsay
00:18:44.460 how do you want to wrap this up? Yeah, well, I want to thank people for blowing this up and
00:18:52.920 because that's the only way that can happen, right, is when people actually write on social
00:18:58.320 media and write to the CBC. And, you know, we had MPs like Aaron Gunn and Rachel Thomas coming out
00:19:04.220 and Andrew Lawton talking about this. And I just thank everyone for actually recognizing what
00:19:12.600 happened here and for putting pressure on the CBC and and also APTN and you know they're doing this
00:19:23.240 pause but let's keep the pressure on because I don't want this pause to be you know okay everyone
00:19:28.960 just kind of forgets about it and it fades away for a bit we still need to push for answers and
00:19:34.900 clarity yeah that's another aspect of this how CBC rope APTN into this to give them cover for what
00:19:41.440 they've done. Lindsay, thank you so much for coming on the show. We appreciate it. Thank you.
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