Cancel Caputo?
Councillor Clarifies Charlie Kirk Comments and Warns of “Dangerous Precedent”
On September 10, 2025, an influential organizer in the Make America Great Again movement, Charlie Kirk, was assassinated while speaking at Utah Valley University in Orem, Utah.
As a veteran of the campus culture wars, Kirk was a lightning rod for controversy and relished confrontations with his opponents.
Some saw him as a brilliant political organizer and credit him with driving droves of young Americans to the polls to elect President Trump for a second time.
Others saw him as responsible for mainstream American conservatism increasingly drifting towards extremism while peddling discriminatory ideas.
He wasn’t exactly a household name in Canada, but his death has stirred controversies north of the border, including Sault Ste. Marie.
On her personal Facebook page, Councillor Angela Caputo posted after Kirk’s death, taking issue with others reacting without understanding exactly who he was.
For her, the outpouring of grief was understandable, but she questioned why some remain silent about other injustices in society.
“I am sorry that another human being was shot,” she wrote, but added: “Charlie Kirk would have condoned what happened to Charlie Kirk and Charlie Kirk was not afraid to say that. Stop making it seem otherwise.”
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons (TomChen1989)
While the post itself drew both support and criticism, some thought mere disagreement with her wasn’t enough.
For them, Councillor Caputo had both justified political violence and disqualified herself from public office.
An online petition began circulating seeking her removal from City Council, citing her allegedly “openly radical views” that have fostered “an environment of division” in the community.
The petition currently boasts around 2,700 signatories, although it’s unclear how many of them are constituents. Updates from the organizer posted on the petition concede that a Councillor can’t so simply be removed from their position.
The backlash was subsequently funneled to the City’s Integrity Commissioner, Antoinette Blunt, who’s tasked with managing complaints from members of the public alleging breaches of the municipal Code of Conduct.
In a preliminary report that was received as information at the October 14 City Council meeting, Blunt decided that “an inquiry is appropriate” following at least three complaints, something estimated at $15,000 including legal fees.
That led to some sparring among Councillors, kicked off by Councillor Stephan Kinach asking the Chief Administrative Officer, Tom Vair, if an Integrity Commissioner investigation would cease if a Councillor resigned.
He followed up by clarifying with Vair that the $15,000 was just an estimate at this point and that Councillor Caputo’s hypothetical resignation could save the City such an expenditure.
Councillor Corey Gardi balked at Councillor Kinach’s curious line of questioning. “I want [Caputo] to know, I want everybody on this Council to know... she has a right to her opinions like anybody else here,” he said.
He added that “Councillor Caputo is not going to resign tonight.” He considered his colleague’s intervention “appalling,” while recognizing that his own comments about the matter might attract the Integrity Commissioner’s attention.
Councillor Luke Dufour expressed “a concern” with the presumptive granting of anonymity for complainants and noted that many of the messages he’d received about the matter appeared to originate from outside of the community.
He also worried that Integrity Commissioner investigations could easily be weaponized by the thin skinned. “Using Integrity Commissioners to adjudicate political disagreements satisfies no one,” he said, and advocated for a “cleaned up” Code of Conduct that could prevent potential abuse.
Image Credit: The White House (Memorial for Charlie Kirk)
In an interview with me for Sault This Week, Councillor Caputo clarified her comments about Kirk and expressed concerns about the “dangerous precedent” that the current investigation may be setting if she’s expected to resign.
“People needed to know who they were posting about,” she said, and is confident that her comments were misinterpreted as somehow condoning political violence.
She recognized that people were “sensitive about the violent way that he died” and shared the sympathy of others for his family.
As for the comment about Kirk himself potentially condoning what had happened to him, she pointed to several videos circulating online in which he discussed gun violence in the context of the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution, which protects the right to bear arms.
In one video from 2023 featuring Kirk at a public event, he claimed that gun deaths were an acceptable price to pay to maintain the Second Amendment and ultimately “worth it.”
“This is not my first rodeo with this kind of thing,” Councillor Caputo explained, as someone who’s quite outspoken and maintains an active presence online.
In 2021, when her restaurant was asked to provide food for social media figure, Christopher Saccoccia (known as Chris Sky), and his supporters while touring to advocate against pandemic-era policies, her publicized ‘no’ made headlines.
Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons (GoToVan)
In the wake of that controversy, Councillor Caputo said she received death threats, threats to burn down her business, and a was bombarded by negative online reviews.
But some things are different this time around.
As a mother, dismissing threats isn’t as easy as it used to be, and she feels as though they now extend to her daughter as a solo parent. “If something happens to me, where does she go,” she wondered.
Another difference is her current position on City Council, which she suspects is the reason why a personal Facebook post of hers has “blown up so much.”
As for the kinds of messages she’s received, she described many reactions to her post with “threatening language,” such as a “you better watch out type of thing.” Other messages sent directly to her included aggressive disagreement, some of which accused her of racism and hate speech.
Things seem to have escalated recently, and she recounted calling police following an online response that she believed could veer into criminal territory.
That message came from someone that’s commented frequently on her social media profiles, has sent her private messages, and may have “a history of violence,” according to her.
But not all the reaction has been negative.
Councillor Caputo wanted to emphasize that she’s also received many other messages of support, including after the current Integrity Commissioner investigation began.
“I’m really sorry for what’s happening to you,” expressed some, as well as support from women, people of colour, and members of the LGBTQ community that have appreciated her advocacy.
Others have questioned the Integrity Commissioner investigation process and its anticipated cost, given their belief that Councillor Caputo didn’t do anything other than offend.
She said it’s her “duty as a public official to speak out against injustices,” and her constituents elected her with a clear understanding of her political positions.
Like some of her Council colleagues, she worries that the City’s Integrity Commissioner will be called upon to investigate political expression that’s not illegal but might be considered offensive for different reasons.
Further, Councillor Kinach’s hypothetical question that the matter could simply be resolved with her resignation was “in poor taste.”
Instead, she hoped that political disagreements could be addressed without potentially lengthy and costly investigations.
“My door is always open,” she said.