Police federation calls for probe of CBC-APTN show, says officers were ‘misled’

OTTAWA — The National Police Federation is calling for an inquiry into a CBC and APTN comedy show it says intentionally misled current and former members of the RCMP to get them to agree to interviews.

The show, which has not aired, is described by the Indigenous Screen Office as a satire program meant to “flip the script” on modern and historical injustices against Indigenous Peoples.

“With outrageous humour, they flip the script on modern and historical injustices against Indigenous Peoples, offering a fresh, timely perspective on the prank genre, akin to shows like Borat and The Yes Men,” the Indigenous Screen Office said in an online post about the show.

The National Police Federation says RCMP members who were invited to participate in the show were told they would be recognized and honoured for their service, but were instead “deceived, insulted and publicly shamed at the expense of Canadian taxpayers.”

“For many active and retired RCMP members, this experience is deeply distressing. These are individuals who have spent decades sacrificing their own safety and well-being while responding to traumatic events,” the union wrote, adding that the show should be cancelled.

The union has also called for Canadian Heritage Minister Marc Miller, whose office is responsible for funding CBC, to “call for immediate action.”

In an emailed statement, Miller’s spokesperson Hermine Landry said CBC and APTN operate independently, and that questions should be addressed to the broadcasters.

CBC said this week the show’s production is being paused while it assesses existing footage.

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

The Canadian Press has attempted to reach out to the showrunners and others with knowledge of the project, but has not received a response.

National Police Federation President Brian Sauve told The Canadian Press he doesn’t think the show is taking the right approach to having discussions about the relationship between Indigenous Peoples and the RCMP.

“When you’re talking about reconciliation and atrocities against our Indigenous communities across Canada, the majority of members serving today started their service post all of that,” he said.

“Attack the institution. But don’t attack the people who have chosen to serve in that institution when their service came well beyond any time that those atrocities may have.”

One former RCMP officer, who posts on YouTube under the name Clinton Jaws, said in a video posted this week he was approached to appear on the show and sat for interviews.

“They wanted to get me because I’m the one that is sick and tired of apologizing,” he said in the hour-long video.

“How many times are we going to say sorry? How many times are we going to acknowledge they don’t want to reconcile? They don’t like us. They don’t even hang out with us.”

The former officer said one of the interviewers asked him what he makes of the RCMP’s involvement in residential schools and he responded by asking which officers “snatched kids.”

“It was bad. Bad things happened,” he said, adding that RCMP officers “had a very little role in taking kids away from their homes and getting them to school. What the majority of calls were was missing persons calls.”

The RCMP has a long, fraught history with Indigenous Peoples.

In the 1900s, the RCMP acted to enforce attendance at residential schools and to return children who ran away from the institutions.

More than 150,000 Indigenous children were forced to attend residential schools, the last of which closed in 1996. An estimated 6,000 children died in the schools, though experts say the actual number could be much higher.

The Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which was tasked with researching the institutions, found they were rife with abuse. Children attending the schools were separated from their families and barred from visiting them.

The commission concluded the schools constituted “a systematic, government-sponsored attempt to destroy Aboriginal cultures and languages and to assimilate Aboriginal Peoples so that they no longer existed as distinct peoples.”

Several Conservative MPs have questioned why CBC is funding the program, as news emerged last week that several high-profile people accused of downplaying the damage caused by residential schools were also lured into sitting for interviews.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 21, 2026.

Alessia Passafiume, The Canadian Press