A deceptive sting operation bankrolled by Canadian public money has been exposed as a coordinated effort to entrap and discredit prominent voices questioning official narratives on residential schools and Canadian history. The project, alternately titled Counting Coup, Northland Tales, and the broadcast brand Wake Up Canada, was commissioned by CBC Entertainment and APTN. It was produced by NLT1 Productions Inc. with ties to The Feather Entertainment Inc. and executed using the signature tactics of the American activist-artist group The Yes Men. At least $304,174 in confirmed federal and provincial taxpayer funds flowed into it, plus undisclosed broadcaster licence fees from two Crown corporations.
The targets were not abstract “systems” or anonymous corporations. They were named individuals: author and Frontier Centre communications director Lindsay Shepherd, former academic Frances Widdowson, OneBC leader Dallas Brodie, Toronto author Jerry Amernic, an unnamed RCMP officer, and now sitting Conservative MP Aaron Gunn. The textbook deception relied on fabricated corporate identities, impersonated academics, fake consulting gigs, staged meetings, and release forms that explicitly waived subjects’ rights to inspect or approve AI-modified footage before broadcast.
This was not journalism. It was state-adjacent political warfare financed by the very taxpayers whose elected representatives and public intellectuals were being set up.
The Setups: Fake Companies, Fake Credentials, Real Traps
Lindsay Shepherd detailed how a group posing as “Heritage Figures Canada,” a non-existent entity with no corporate registry trace, no TLS certificates, and no Wayback Machine history, approached her under false pretenses for a friendly interview about her book A Day with Sir John A. They followed up with fake consulting work, fake meetings, and a fake commercial shoot, complete with a fabricated Sir John A. Macdonald collectible prototype, before ambushing her in a second filmed session designed to demonize Macdonald and smear her. Shepherd photographed the release form she was pressured to sign. It reads in part: “The Participant waives any right to inspect or approve the use of such tools [AI-assisted editing] or the resulting materials, consistent with the Producer’s editorial discretion.”
Frances Widdowson was flown to Vancouver on May 4, 2026, paid $1,100 cash, placed in a studio, and confronted with props such as children’s shoes on a table and a “Sir John A. Macdonald” impersonator ranting about “racial purity.” She later identified the host “Mike Smith,” presented as a British Columbia professor, as Igor Vamos, a U.S. citizen, full professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and co-founder of The Yes Men. Widdowson turned the camera on her ambushers and walked out.
OneBC chief of staff Wyatt Claypool published screenshots of the “Forge Media,” another phantom company, pitch email to Dallas Brodie. The same fake portfolio graphics, now offline, were AI-generated. Brodie declined.
MP Aaron Gunn publicly confirmed on May 12–13, 2026, that the identical “Heritage Figures Canada” front contacted him in an unsuccessful attempt to lure a sitting parliamentarian into the trap. “It’s something you would expect from a university fraternity, not a taxpayer-funded broadcaster,” Gunn posted. He demanded answers and warned of inevitable lawsuits.
These were not isolated mistakes. They were deliberate, pre-planned fabrications by a production team that had rehearsed the playbook before.
The Funding and Commissioning: Your Money, Their Hit Job
Public funder databases confirm the cash trail. The Canada Media Fund provided $35,000 in pre-development funding to The Feather Entertainment Inc. in fiscal year 2023–24 and filed it as “Drama.” The Indigenous Screen Office Story Fund allocated production funding to NLT1 Productions Inc. as part of a $6.3 million round in fiscal year 2024–25 and filed it as “Television Series, Documentary.” Creative Saskatchewan contributed $269,174 in Feature Film and TV Production funding to The Feather Entertainment Inc. after April 2025.
CBC and APTN licence fees remain undisclosed but are standard for commissioned works. The total confirmed public money reached at least $304,174, plus whatever else the Crown broadcasters contributed. The genre filings diverged suspiciously from Drama to Television Series to Documentary to prank comedy. This raises the possibility of deliberate regulatory arbitrage to dodge CRTC documentary consent standards.
CBC’s own Director of Public Relations, Katherine Wolfgang, confirmed in writing to Shepherd on May 11, 2026, that the project was “in early production for CBC Entertainment and APTN.” Juno News broke the broader confirmation. CBC and APTN did not merely fund this project. They commissioned it. The Wolfgang email is the cleanest primary-source smoking gun. APTN has an even longer track record. It favourably covered the same team’s 2019 “Indigenous Pipeline Council” hoax against Enbridge in Minnesota. Now the same broadcasters are platforming the third installment against their own citizens.
This is not oversight. It is an editorial authorization of deception against political opponents.
Timing and Motive: Silencing Dissent While Criminalizing It
The operation ran concurrently with aggressive federal pushes to criminalize “residential-school denialism.” NDP MP Leah Gazan’s Bill C-413, reintroduced as C-254, enjoyed public support from Crown-Indigenous Relations Minister Gary Anandasangaree and the $10.4 million-funded Independent Special Interlocutor. The Assembly of First Nations and B.C. The Assembly of First Nations passed supporting motions. The five, now six, named targets are precisely the Canadians most vocal against that narrative.
Adding particular irony, just as this taxpayer-funded ambush was underway, CBC News released a major visual investigation in early May 2026 exposing overseas networks using AI-generated deepfakes and “slopaganda” to push Alberta separatism and stoke national division. While CBC aggressively warned the public about foreign entities and deceptive digital tactics undermining Canadian unity, its Entertainment division was simultaneously commissioning its own domestic deception operation — complete with fabricated corporate identities and pre-emptive AI-editing waivers — against domestic critics of official historical narratives.
This was not a coincidence. It was a three-front campaign of legislative criminalization, academic and journalistic pressure, and taxpayer-funded broadcast entrapment.
Unethical Practices and Legitimate Legal Recourse
The tactics cross every ethical and potentially legal line. Consent was obtained through fabricated identities and credentials, rendering it void. Subjects were induced to participate, travel as in Widdowson’s case, sign documents, and waive rights under false pretenses. The AI waiver clause introduced a novel legal shield that pre-emptively immunized the producers from accountability for digitally manipulated footage. Possible Criminal Code violations under section 380 for fraud and, in Widdowson’s case, section 279 for kidnapping by fraudulent inducement to travel have been publicly raised.
As we noted in direct response to Shepherd’s disclosure:
“In Canada, we have what’s called fraudulent misrepresentation or civil fraud, and based on Lindsay’s experience, it appears she will have a very strong case.”
The same principle applies to every other target. Preservation letters to CBC and APTN for contracts and editorial records, plus demands for contribution-agreement disclosure via parliamentary questions, are already under discussion. CRTC complaints over violations of journalistic standards and Auditor General scrutiny of the funders are warranted.
CBC and APTN are not above the law simply because they wave the public-broadcaster flag. When they commission fraud to target citizens, they expose themselves and the taxpayers footing the bill to civil liability.
The Bigger Picture
This scandal is far bigger than one flashy “prank” series. It is nothing less than all-out war against dissenting voices in Canada. A Crown-corporation apparatus stands exposed as willing to launder public money into activist hit jobs targeting domestic political opponents — specifically those who dare challenge official narratives on residential schools, Canadian history, and national identity.
The Yes Men’s brand of deception, once reserved for multinational corporations, has been imported, subsidized with taxpayer dollars, and weaponized by CBC and APTN to police speech and enforce ideological conformity at home.
Nationalist commentator Jeremy MacKenzie captured the outrage perfectly:
“So now they’re using our stolen money to commit fraud?
CBC needs to be completely destroyed, and its board executives held accountable for a wide and growing umbrella of criminal behaviour.”
In another pointed remark, he described the CBC as “a national cancer that is feasting on our taxes against our will that apparently exists solely to undermine and harm Canadian national unity and dignity with lies and manipulation.”
Given that Jeremy MacKenzie has already felt the full weight of the CBC’s propaganda machine and sustained character-assassination campaigns in the past, Canadians would be wise to take his warnings seriously. After attempting to destroy him, the public broadcaster is now expanding its taxpayer-funded operations to target mainstream conservatives and prominent dissenting voices. The pattern is unmistakable — and the threat to free expression is real and growing.
Canadians deserve answers. They deserve complete disclosure of every dollar spent, every contract signed, and every internal editorial approval granted. They deserve an immediate and permanent halt to this project. And they deserve genuine accountability for public officials and broadcasters who decided that taxpayer-funded deception and character assassination were acceptable tools of public broadcasting.