A 16-year-old B.C. high school student says he is being denied the opportunity to return to class unless he removes his YouTube video called “Lies and Reconciliation,” which exposed some of the propaganda that was pushed on students during his school’s Truth and Reconciliation Day programming.
Isaac Simpson, a Grade 11 student enrolled in a Lower Mainland school’s film and television program, decided to put his filmmaking skills to use after growing frustrated with what he was being taught about Canada’s history, often unbeknownst to parents.
From a masked Black Lives Matter advocate telling students about truth, to another virtual speaker telling the youth to embrace discussions of “land back,” to a disturbing exaggerated illustration depicting Catholic nuns and an RCMP officer forcibly tearing Indigenous children from their mothers, Simpson’s video gives parents a rare look inside the classroom.
“I got really sick of all the indoctrination being pushed down students’ throats,” Simpson told me. “They were just telling you what to think, not how to think.”
But his decision to expose the material came at a cost.
After initially being suspended for what the school described as a period of “pause and reflection,” Simpson and his parents attended a meeting with school officials that the teen likened to an interrogation.
Simpson documented that experience in a second video posted to his YouTube channel, Isaac Simpson’s Flying Circus. Both videos have since been gaining attention online.
Now, Simpson says he has been told he cannot return to school unless the videos come down. He refuses to comply.
“I’m not taking it down because, you know, I stand by what I said,” Simpson explained.
I caught up with the young filmmaker to find out why it was important for him to expose what’s happening in his public school despite the risk.
For Simpson, the issue is bigger than his suspension. Currently, “parents have no way of figuring out what is being taught in schools,” he said.
I also spoke with his mother, former Global News director and current B.C. political commentator Anita Krishna, about the school’s response and what comes next.
