Category: Media

Then when some of Ghomeshi’s deplorable actions came to the attention of CBC’s most senior executives, in the summer of 2014, these senior executives initially failed to act on the information, presumably hoping that these allegations would disappear into the ether.

CBC senior brass only acted later in October of 2014 to fire Ghomeshi when they learned that the Toronto Star was about to publish an explosive expose of a multitude of allegations against Ghomeshi by over a dozen women, some of whom were CBC employees and former employees.

In order to forestall a more comprehensive investigation of Ghomeshi and the whole of CBC by truly independent outside investigators, CBC hired Janice Rubin, a Toronto lawyer, who had had a previous contractual relationship with the CBC and had been a guest on several CBC panels.

Basically a friendly investigator.

Though Ms. Rubin was technically an outside independent investigator, there is an appearance of lack of impartiality, objectivity and independence.

Furthermore, the CBC had severely restricted her mandate to investigate and had constrained her investigatory powers.

Rubin was limited to investigating Ghomeshi and the two CBC shows with which he was involved at the CBC. Rubin did not have subpoena powers.  Nor did she have the power to grant immunity to prospective witnesses.

Accordingly, Rubin was not able to talk to many relevant witnesses, who feared that anything they disclosed could be used against them in subsequent proceedings.

As a result, according to well-known Toronto employment lawyer,  Howard Levitt, writing in the National Post, the Rubin Report was a dismal failure.

The Rubin Report did not disclose any more information that had not already been discussed and disclosed already in numerous Toronto newspapers, prior to the report.

Though the report talked about a cancerous “host culture of impunity” in the CBC, that had been endemic to the CBC for years and years, the report failed to deal with any other CBC hosts or stars, both past and present.

The report just limited itself to Ghomeshi and to two managers who were responsible allegedly for permitting Ghomeshi to continue his conduct- unfettered, unrestricted and unpunished.

As Levitt wisely noted, “Jian Ghomeshi did not act alone. His predations were countenanced by a plethora of managers and people in human resources – people who, but for two, still remain.”

Employment lawyer Daniel Lublin, who also reviewed the Rubin Report, made a similar point.

Lublin stated, “The four executives who were participating in that conference call (Lacroix, Conway, general counsel Maryse Bertrand, and vice-president, people and culture, Roula Zaarour), of course, are still there, and this all happened under their watch, and yet it’s the other two (Boyce and Spencer) who were cut,” he said.

“Someone had to go. It wasn’t going to be the CEO or Ms. Conway. Why? Because they call the shots. (Leafs president Brendan) Shanahan didn’t fire himself, he fired everyone else. That’s because when you’re the boss, you get to call the shots.”

Howard Levitt was also particularly disappointed at what the investigation and report failed to do. Specifically, Levitt argued,

“What the report did not do is make the recommendations that the public most wanted to know and which are most needed to cleanse the organization. Who exactly said what to whom? Who should be disciplined? Who should be fired?

What disciplinary procedures should be put in place going forward? What is the specific line for unacceptable conduct in the workplace? What are the lines for reportable misconduct and what are the consequences for crossing them?

Howard Levitt wisely concluded,” That investigation should properly have been done by an independent body with power to subpoena and get to the bottom of problems we have come to learn were endemic at the CBC. Of course, that would have resulted in a revamp of the entire organization, doubtless many dismissals, and threatened the existing CBC establishment.”

I totally agree with Mr. Levitt. A truly independent body with teeth, authority and subpoena power needs to investigate the CBC from top to bottom.

Otherwise, the CBC will never eradicate the cancerous culture of entitlement and host culture of impunity that continue to course through the CBC body.

Certainly, Canadians’ hard-earned tax dollars should not be used to fund a toxic environment where apparently senior male CBC hosts emotionally and sexually prey on vulnerable female employees.

Amanda Lang , as CBC’s News senior business correspondent, hosts CBC’s flagship business news program, The Lang Exchange, which frequently covers the Canadian insurance company.

In the same blog, Brown provided written evidence that Lang had received payments from Manulife Insurance Company, one of Canada’s largest insurance companies, to moderate two public discussions sponsored by Manulife in July and August, 2014.

Subsequent to these paying gigs, Lang, then had on her show, the CEO of Manulife in September, 2014 who talked very favorably about the acquisition of one of Manulife’s competitors.  Which Lang supported very positively and uncritically.

Brown believes that both CBC and Lang were at fault, because neither CBC nor Lang disclosed during the show that she had been previously paid by Manulife and neither suggested that Lang alternatively should have recused herself from this show. Brown clearly suggests that there is an appearance of bias, and that Lang’s favorable treatment of the Manulife CEO on her CBC show, may be related to Lang having been previously financially compensated by the company.

Similarly, in the same year, Lang entered into a contract with Sun Life, to be paid for a speaking gig at one of Sun Life customer appreciation evenings.  And subsequent to entering into such financial contract, Lang had the Sun Life’s CEO on her business show to promote Sun Life’s products for retirement.  Again with the knowledge and consent of CBC. As above, Brown suggests that Lang and CBC should have disclosed Lang’s prior financial arrangement with Sun Life, or alternatively, recused herself from this show.

Brown’s suggests unfavorably, that Lang’s uncritical and cheerleader-like interview with Sun Life appears to have been related to her financial arrangement with Sun Life.

According to Brown, these two incidents with major Canadian life companies,  appear to taint Lang’s reputation and integrity and call into question CBC’s own judgment and integrity for permitting Lang’s shows with Manulife and Sun Life to proceed.

Brown suggests that Lang earns about $20,000-30,000 per speaking gig and therefore she earns about $300,000 annually with these speaking engagements, which ain’t chump change. Together with her non-publicly reported, taxpayer-supported CBC salary of about 300,000, Amanda Lang, public servant, is not suffering financially.

But that’s not all, folks.

Brown reports,  that according to multiple anonymous sources in the CBC, in 2013 Lang tried to sabotage the brilliant expose by fellow CBC colleague, Kathy Tomlinson, of Royal Bank’s abuse of Canada’s temporary foreign workers program.

The objectives of this federal program are to permit Canadian companies to import foreign workers temporarily to fill seasonal positions that cannot be effectively filled by existing Canadian workers ( i.e. itinerant farm workers) or to fill highly specialized jobs, where there are not sufficient Canadian workers who possess the required skills or knowledge ( computer engineering, information technology).

In a series of CBC reports, Tomlinson reported that the Royal Bank, Canada’s largest bank had abused the system, by using an outsourcing firm to bring in temporary workers for its Canadian IT employees to train… in order to sack those Canadian employees and ship their jobs overseas.

Amanda Lang, to her discredit, according to Jesse Brown,” lobbied aggressively within the CBC to undermine Tomlinson’s reporting on the foreign worker scandal at CBC…..When that failed, Lang tried to deflate the story by having RBC CEO Gord Nixon on to the National for a softball interview in which he criticized the CBC’s reporting and dismissed the scandal as trivial. During the interview Lang did not challenge Nixon.”

Amanda Lang then took her campaign to the Globe and Mail, where she penned a dismissive opinion piece defending outsourcing and making light of the abuses at the heart of the RBC scandal. In effect, she called RBC hiring temporary workers “ a sideshow”. And then Lang has apparently lied about her unusual Globe involvement, when she stated that the Globe had approached her to write such an article. When in fact, the Globe now admits that Lang approached the Globe.

But the story gets worse.

When Lang initially tried to derail this story on a CBC conference call with Tomlinson, in which she questioned Tomlinson’s facts and integrity, Lang failed to disclose that she had put herself in a very serious conflicts of interest.

According to Brown, Lang, prior to her unusual meddling in the Royal Bank scandal, had been paid by Royal Bank on 6 separate occasions for speaking engagements ( estimated $15,000 a crack). Prior to having RBC CEO Gord Nixon on her show, to defend RBC’s foreign workers program, Nixon has publicly written a laudatory blurb on Lang’s most recent book. Lastly, also unbeknownst to CBC staffers at the time, since 2013, Lang had been in a serious relationship with Geoff Beattie, a RBC board member.

In sum, Lang was conflicted every which way to Sunday.

To date, as the chop suey continues to hit the fan, and CBC’s Kathy Tomlinson, has come forward publicly to support Jesse Brown’s version of the events, the CBC executives continue to stand by, protect and coddle its high profile, celebrity star.

Sound familiar?

Just as the CBC brass continued to stand by Jian Ghomeshi, when he too had come under constant and persistent criticism by fellow CBC colleagues for his “conduct”.

Amanda Lang is further evidence of the cancerous celebrity culture that has infected the CBC. Where such celebrities appear to operate within CBC’s halls, in disregard of journalistic standards and normal, ethical moral behavior. But yet are protected and promoted by the CBC.

According to CBC lifer, Linden MacIntyre- this culture of celebrity is endemic to CBC.

Jian Ghomeshi and now Amanda Lang.  Will CBC ever get its act together, or is it finally the time for the Canadian taxpayers to pull the plug on the CBC?

It appears Mr. Multicultural, exhibited the dark side of Canadian multiculturalism

The feminist, Mr. Sensitivity, has been charged with four counts of sexual assault and one count of choking. Over 15 women have come forward alleging that this sensitive, progressive, feminist allegedly beat them, choked them and sexually assaulted them.

It appears Mr. Multicultural, exhibited the dark side of Canadian multiculturalism. Ghomeshi appears to have also internalized a non-Canadian hatred for women. A feeling of superiority towards women. A view of women as beneath him, literally and figuratively. As things to be used, abused, dismissed and discarded. A view of women native to certain foreign countries where women are third class, barbarically genitally circumcised, raped and then punished for being raped or honor killed for disobeying the males in their families.

So if Ghomeshi, the Canadian progressive ideal is a sham, perhaps the very concept of Canadian progressiveism is a sham.  Perhaps, behind the smiling, sensitive, Canadian male progressive, is in reality a woman-hating, female abusing, manipulative, egotistical tyrant.

Those are the harsh and cruel Ghomeshi lessons that bred in the bone progressives, like Salutin, refuse to face squarely, honestly and openly.

Because if Ghomeshi is a sham, then what about the sensitive, feminist, multicultural Justin Trudeau, who one day preaches “open nominations for Liberal candidates”, then the next day engages in down and dirty manipulative politics, throwing under the Liberal bus, long time Liberal candidates, in favor of his chosen people?

Trudeau, who also one day beats his breast about the injustice of missing and deceased aboriginal women and the next day, caters to certain Canadian religious groups whose radical members abuse, torture, and demean women as chattels.

In sum, Ghomeshi, is no mentally deranged lone wolf. He is the canary in the collapsing mine of Canadian progressiveism.

Since Warner Music paid for Ghomeshi’s Malibu trip, it is very unlikely that Ghomeshi is going to bite the hand, that so very well fed him.

I sincerely believe that this minor payola incident is just the tip of a much larger and more corrupt iceberg.

This Toronto Star article also alluded to other financial benefits that Ghomeshi enjoyed- ie.  free hotel rooms and airline services and possibly many other services and benefits.

Note also in an earlier Toronto Star article, Ghomeshi showcased and promoted musical guests on his popular show, Q,  who were also clients of his own agent and entertainment lawyer. Thus raising the obvious question, did Ghomeshi financially benefit directly or indirectly from these efforts?

Recall the payola scandals in the US in the 1950s and ‘60s, where money, drugs, trips,  women, and all sorts of gifts, were given to DJs by agents and studios, in order to secure valuable and regular radio play of the studios’ artists, records and songs.  There were congressional hearings and offending radio stations were fined, their licenses threatened or revoked, and offending DJs lost their jobs.

We are not at that stage yet in this very public CBC psychodrama. But we are fast approaching a complete moral and morale breakdown in the CBC and enormous public disgust with the CBC by many Canadian taxpayers who ultimately fund these morally questionable CBC operations.

There should be a total cleaning of house at CBC- of all senior managers and executives who were culpably involved with Ghomeshi.

I know I sound like a broken record or CD.

But now, more than ever, there should be a federal bipartisan government inquiry into CBC- dealing with sexual harassment at CBC and now apparently and potentially illegal if not unethical “Payola” practices at CBC.

This Ghomeshi cancer continues to spread unabated throughout the whole of CBC.

Unless this cancer is rooted out and surgically removed, preferably by an outside and effective government inquiry, once and for all,  this cancer will continue to metastasize and ultimately, destroy from within the whole of CBC.