Did the Canadian government ban its employees from using the phrase "Let's Go Brandon"? No, that's not true: The document seen online is not from the Canadian government agency mentioned in the document; it is a fake email that someone created. A spokesperson from the agency, Shared Services Canada, told Lead Stories that this document was not issued by them and does not reflect their departmental policy.
The claim appeared in a Facebook post (archived here) where it was posted on October 18, 2021. It read:
JUST IN: The Canadian government threatens to fire any government employee who uses "Let's Go Brandon" in communications. 😳😂
This is what the post looked like on Facebook at the time of writing:
The phrase "Let's Go Brandon" began to spread among people as an anti-President Biden slogan after a NASCAR journalist did a post-race interview with NASCAR driver Brandon Brown. The crowd randomly started shouting "F*** Joe Biden," but the journalist stated the chant was "Let's Go Brandon." In this YouTube video, viewers can hear the "F*** Joe Biden" chant starts at about 0:55 seconds, and the journalist says the phrase "Let's go, Brandon" at 1:08.
Lead Stories emailed Shared Services Canada about this claim and got a response on October 19, 2021. They told us that:
We can confirm this message was not issued by Shared Services Canada and it does not reflect departmental policy.
Shared Services Canada gives digital services to organizations within the Canadian government.
