The Ben Mulroney Show - The hypocrisy of cancel culture -- Lindsay Shepherd tweet leads to firing

Episode Date: October 6, 2025

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The whole way? The whole way. Welcome to the Ben Mulroney show. It is Monday, October 6th. Thank you so much for starting your day with us, starting your week with us as a matter of fact. There's lots of news to get to. And last week, there was a story out of British Columbia that if you were paying attention, the name in that story might have rung a bell.

There was a BC conservative staffer who was fired for a tweet. And that staffer's name was Lindsay Shepard. And you might say to yourself, I think, that name, that name harkens back. I remember that. And if you remember it,

you remember it because of some of the work that my producer, Mike Drolet did back in the day when he wore a different hat. Mike, why don't you tell us about that story? Well,

it was back when she was a teacher's assistant at Wilford Laurier University. And she had, as part of her class, taking a clip from TVO to present the argument about pronouns. And she didn't take a stance on it. She put it in there from a neutral position to be able to get her students to understand

how to debate. Yeah. That's what, that's all it was. And somebody took issue with the fact that it was even being mentioned. They were, they were triggered by it. This is what people were saying they're triggered by stuff. Really kind of the start of that. And they went to the university and complained. And the university looked at it and obviously they had a problematic. They called it toxic. Toxic. That's right. She created a toxic atmosphere by suggesting that they could have a debate. Yeah. And so,

how do you just accept the stuff? And if I'm not mistaken, Lindsay recorded that whole thing. She did and we played the audio at the time. It was, yeah, it was a big story.

Well, well, well, this is another big story. We should read the tweet. We should definitely read the tweet. And because, look, if you read the,

if you read the CBC story, the words that are lifted from it are pretty inflammatory. And it's a, look, it's a tough, it's a tough tweet to read, to be honest. Like, it doesn't necessarily,

I don't necessarily subscribe to it, but this is what it said. The orange shirt is in reference to Orange Shirt Day. The orange shirt and the orange flag perpetuate untruths about Canadian history, such as the grandest lie of all that

215 children's graves were unearthed in Camloops. It is a disgrace that this fake flag flies in front of the provincial parliament buildings, and it is a disgrace to see the shirt of lies framed prominently and permanently beside the coat of arms

so that locals and tourists cannot view our insignia without having their eye drawn and redirected to the orange shirt. Like I said, if you just read the story and that's uncomfortable to read. And it's,

there are words in there that I would not use. But does she have the right to say it? That's the question. And what do you do? Like, what we, I quote, I quote movies a lot on this show, right? And one of the movies I quote a lot is the American president. And at one point, President Shepard, who is, he's a Democrat, which is the great irony, is he stands up and he says, if you believe in free speech, if you believe that the symbol of free speech is the American flag, then you also have to believe that a symbol of free speech is a citizen's right. right to burn that flag in protest. In other words, defending the speech you agree with is easy.

But true free speech is standing up and defending someone's right to say something that you disagree with. There are parts of what Lindsay said, I think, are open for debate. There are parts of it that are, I think, fair. There are parts of it. And there are words that I would not use to make a very similar point. But I respect her right to say it. And she was, she has been fired by the, by the BC Conservative Party. Now, is it fired or do you, I kind of look this as some, not fired, but kind of canceled. Because this is, it's, it reeks of that. Well, yeah, yeah, there's an element of it. But I think, look we've said it before cancel culture

had an there was an element of going unearthing your past and finding stuff that you said 10 15 years ago that without the context of the day or the context of recognizing that you may have been in a different place

in your life or you may have been younger or you may maybe hadn't gone through the education that you now have using those words weaponizing your past against you this happened in the here and now And so you could argue that this is consequence culture, right? We talked about a lot of it when Charlie Kirk passed away and people said some stuff that crossed a line and they met the consequences of their actions. So I don't know that this is pure cancel culture, but there is an element of not wanting to have a debate.

I tend to look at it and say, okay, this is your perspective. The question has to be, and we're going to put it to Lindsay, does this? this, does this fly in the face of what you, what your professional responsibilities are in the conservative party of British Columbia? So we're going to ask her, what was your job? What was your job there? And what were your responsibilities? And why did you, why did you post this? And we'll see if we can, we can get to a place of understanding. Well, we certainly want, we wanted to set it up. Because there's no way we could go through all of this and then have a conversation with her. We just wouldn't have time. Okay. So that's

one story, right? That's a person who was fired for actions that some would say flew in the face of their responsibilities, right? So what do you do with this next story? Okay. And this is a story, again, on the CBC website. I did not know that there is a nearly 50-year-old First Nations University, but there is. And the president of that university is named Jacqueline Otman, O-T-M-A-N. And there was an investigation done by Deloitte into her presidency that concluded that she engaged in, quote, empire building, nepotism, and policy violations, creating a circle of favored insiders while excluding others, hiring relatives, and friends without proper disclosure and granting lucrative contracts outside board approval. So they referenced at her empire building. And when you look at the details. The details are terrible.

But let's also remember, every university is publicly funded to a large degree in this country, which means our taxpayer's dollars have gone towards this. And this woman, based on this outside investigation, because there was a whistleblower, the whistleblower then went, triggered this investigation, this Deloitte investigation, found all of this stuff. I love that they, they, accuser of empire building, her name is Jacqueline Ottman, so I'm referring to it as the Ottoman Empire. Yeah, that was well done. I like that a lot. but you know our tax dollars went to her creating a fiefdom of friends and family around her that were being paid by us and here's where it gets weird i mean if that's the conclusion by in a world that makes sense that this investigation would would would uh signal the end of the ottman empire however ottman uh fired the whistleblower jason Wong the VP of Finance, during the probe, a separate report found that the firing violated policies

and was at least partly retaliatory, raising fears and a chilling effect on future complaints. And from what I understand, she still has her job. Yeah, apparently you can't get fired for that. You can't get... And the board supported her. The board supported her after an independent investigation found that she had broken almost every rule as it relates to hiring.

and the payment of these people. So on one hand, you got Lindsay, a shepherd, who was fired for a tweet. And on the other hand, you got the head of a university who not only didn't get fired, but got the support of her board, and she fired the whistleblower at a public university. Sorry, publicly funded university. Again, we've been talking about it for the past few weeks. that it seems like there are, like we are creating two different realities for, you know, for people from certain cultural backgrounds and other people from other cultural backgrounds.

You're accused of the same thing and you get treated differently. We've been using the example of the criminal justice system. We talked about that last week. But this is just generally in society, how someone who's actually accused credibly of violating every single rule in the book, not only does she not get fired, but fires the person who highlighted the infractions. And Lindsay Shepard got fired for a tweet. So up next, we're going to speak with Lindsay Shepard herself.

Don't go anywhere. This is the Ben Mulrooney. Welcome back to the Ben Mulroney. So, all right, before the break, we sort of laid the groundwork for a conversation we are about to have. We were talking about Lindsay Shepard, who sort of burst on into public consciousness. way back in 2017 when as a teaching assistant

at Sir Wilford University, she wanted to have an open, fair dialogue about pronouns by using some footage from TV Ontario. And some kids in the class were triggered, and that led to her ouster from school, but not before she got the whole thing on tape. My producer, Mike Droulet, was actually the one who broke that story.

And I mean, I just shake my head to believe that that, I mean, we've been in in this, as we say, in French D'Anjou, since 2017 dealing with, with this, what I think is this so identity politics nonsense. And Lindsay is back in the news today

because over the weekend, she posted a tweet that saw her job taken away from her. And so to discuss that and more, we're joined by Lindsay herself. Lindsay, thanks so much for joining us on the Ben Malernisha. Hi, thanks for the invitation. Okay, so, so I read your tweet to, to, to the audience before. And before we get into that, tell me about your job with the party, the BC Conservative Party.

What was your job? Yeah, so for about a year, I had been working as a comms officer. So in communications, I write letters for British Columbia MLAs and the Conservative Party. Before that, I had just been an elected board member with the party since 2020. too. So I do have a history with them. Okay. And so, and what is the, what is the party's policy regarding, uh,

members, uh, sort of your, your, your, your, your responsibilities on social media. Personally. Um, yeah. I mean, there are no outlined responsibilities on social media. Okay. So, so, so, yeah. So, so, yeah. So, so, yeah. So, so, you, you, you tweeted, and I'll give I'll give people so the gist of it.

You took issue with Orange Shirt Day and Orange Flag Day, because in your opinion, and tell me if I'm reading too much in or I'm not being accurate, your issue is that these things, the flag and the shirt have been weaponized and they've been, they are assuming a truth that isn't necessarily true, which is that 250 children's graves were unearthed in cam loops. And because of what you see as misrepresentation of that of our history, we are forced into this narrative that is not supported by fact. Exactly. And I mean, we're talking about September 30th, which is called the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. So the truth, part of that is important to me. And I don't, I like to investigate things and understand things.

And so if someone is, if a lot of people are perpetuating the narrative that 215 children's remains, specifically that word remains, we're unearthed in Camloops. And then, you know, that was 2021. And here we are four years later. And that just hasn't been proven to be the case. Well, I am going to question, why are you flying this flag and displaying this shirt that perpetuates this story that isn't actually. accurate about Canadian history in this particular instance. Okay, so you put your tweet out and talk to me about what happened next.

Yeah, so I think the tweet spoke to a lot of people. It was making the rounds, for sure. A lot of people texting me privately while it was still up and saying, like, oh, thank you for saying that. Like, I can't stand, you know, the suffocation around this narrative. Like, you're not allowed to question where, the remains and where these graves are. But then I received a call from the party whip to take down the tweet.

And I'm really not someone to self-censor to such an extreme degree, especially when I felt like this is an acceptable conservative opinion in the conservative party. I mean, if the conservative is that, if that's not a place where you can appreciate Canadian history and want to understand full truths about Canadian history. history, then I don't know where people belong then to, yeah. So I was asked to take down the tweet. I did. And in the end, it didn't matter because they fired me over it anyway. And what was their justification? What did they tell you when they took your job away? It was termination without cause. So they still cited the tweet and they said they didn't like

it, but it was still termination without cause a few weeks before I was about to leave for maternity leave. Oh, my goodness. And really, this is all because of two NDP, like BCNDP government MLAs who were attacking me over it. And the conservatives, instead of, you know, sticking up for other conservative viewpoints, decided they value the opinions and of their opponent. Well, that's what I was going to ask you.

It does seem perplexing. Look, I went on record before the break. where I said, look, there are certain words that you use that I just wouldn't use if this was a point I was trying to make, but that doesn't change the fact that, you know, I believe what I'm reading here is not hateful. It's not, it's not, it's not, doesn't run afoul of any law as far as I can tell. And so it's incumbent upon me to have the courage of my convictions and say, look, even if I don't agree with what somebody wrote, I have to fight for their right to say it. And, and I would think, And I don't know, I have to, I have to plead ignorance. I don't know enough about the British Columbia Conservative Party to say that that, that should, that should run lockstep with their values. But just at first blush, I would assume that they, that they, they want to support free speech and they want to support the free exchange of ideas. And, and so I'm, I am perplexed by this decision that they made. How do you see it?

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, John Rustat is the leader. of the BC Conservatives, which is the opposition party. And he was actually kicked out of his former party, the BC Liberals, in 2022, because of his tweet about climate change. So it all goes very full circle, doesn't it? So after he was canceled, you know, he kind of, like my involvement with the BC Conservatives predates John Rustad.

So I was there before he was. He was part of the Liberals, more of a center party in BC. But, you know, our BC conservative movement was kind of, on the come-up. He happened to have lost his job with the BC liberals, so it was kind of like a marriage where he came in to be leader. But ultimately, he kicked out someone who was loyal before. And you know what, I still have hope for the BC Conservatives. I have hope for the party. Not sure I see any hope under John Rustat. Is there any, if you had to do it over again, is there anything you would do differently?

I don't think so I mean I said what I had to say I was thanked by people for saying it when it wasn't a problem with my employer I did take into account what they said and I decided to delete it based on their request they also and then the BCNDP did a press release about it you know it's just another day at work for them right

like try to get someone fired for their opinions try to cancel people that's just how they operate So when I became subject to those attacks, I was told, don't talk to media. I didn't. So all along, I was following instructions, and I felt like, I guess maybe I thought that would save me, but it just shows that it doesn't. Yeah.

So can I ask when you go on, when you were supposed to go on maternity leave? Yeah, mid-November. Okay. So very. Well, congratulations on your upcoming growing fans. family. Thank you. So do you have any, do you have, are you making plans for what you do when, you know, you've, you're, you've, you want to go back to work?

Um, yeah. I mean, that's the thing with, you know, I have two kids already expecting my third. So it's not like this is a languishing unemployment situation. I can be myself very busy with my children. Um, but yeah, I mean, it's just to think that after my maternity, leave, I will not be involved with the party anymore. It's unfortunate, especially because it was so, it was such a privilege to work in the BC legislature building, like a historical, beautiful building like that. Yeah. And to think that most people who work there in the government and et cetera probably don't even appreciate it and they denigrate that institution. Well, Lindsay, I know you're going to be at home enjoying motherhood, but we'd love to have you back on the show where we can

have a larger conversation about free speech, where we are today, maybe go back all the way to 2017. It has been a long time since you've been in the news. So we hope to reach out to you again and have you on for a larger conversation. Thank you so much for joining us. It's chaos. Wednesdays on Global. As a mother of a four-year-old, this is vacation. Canada's number one reality show is back. This is when Survivor turns into a horror movie.

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