A wellness exposition has removed a keynote speaker convicted in his toddler’s death after the event lost multiple sponsors.

David Stephan, the Lethbridge man convicted in 2016 for failing to provide the necessaries of life for his 19-month-old son who died of bacterial meningitis in 2012, was scheduled to speak at the Health and Wellness Expos of Canada in Edmonton, Calgary, Winnipeg and Saskatoon.

Stephan only spoke at one of his three scheduled appearances in Saskatoon.

“It put a lot of corporations in a position where they have to protect their best interests, and so as a result, we lost two of our major sponsors for the tour this year,” Health and Wellness Expos of Canada owner and producer Rick Thiessen said. “They pulled out the show here and left us high and dry, and that’s sad.”

Sobeys, Flaman Fitness, and The Edmonton Muse, a local magazine, ceased to be sponsors after the event was caught in a social media storm over Stephan’s involvement.

 

 

 

“My Twitter feed blew up,” The Edmonton Muse founder Jessi Toms said, “and people were like, ‘How can you do this?’”

The magazine signed up to be a sponsor a year ago and didn’t know who the speakers were.

“I found out who the speaker was and people don’t like that, and I don’t blame them,” Toms said. “The damage has already been done and it’s really hard to recover from that … I didn’t do my homework because I believed that a 24-year-old event expo would have all of our reputations in mind as well.”

Despite the social media backlash, loss of sponsors and removal from the expo, Thiessen did not criticize the man who was sentenced to four months in prison for his son's death.

“It’s not my position to judge him and I don’t think it’s anyone’s position to judge him.”

With files from The Canadian Press, CTV Calgary, CTV Saskatoon and Nahreman Issa