OTTAWA – CBC president Hubert Lacroix blasted Sun News Network and Quebecor Inc. today for "?deliberately misleading Canadians"? with allegations that the CBC is a ?"hotbed of sexual harassment."?
During an appearance before the Standing Committee on the Status of Women in Ottawa, Lacroix said that recent stories in The Sun and the Journal de Montreal, both Quebecor newspapers, which linked the public broadcaster to revelations of sexual harassment at the RCMP, and more recently at the BBC, were untrue. He accused Sun News host Brian Lilley of shoddy reporting when Lilley reportedly used data obtained from the CBC through an FOI request as ?an excuse for speculation and innuendo.?
?"He insists that he?'s just doing his job, holding CBC to account,"? said Lacroix. "?If that was true, you would think he might have asked us a single question about this before he launched his attack.?"
Lacroix acknowledged that over the past three years, the CBC has received three complaints of sexual harassment from among its 8,599 employees across Canada. In one case, an employee received a written reprimand; in the second, an employee received a written reprimand and was ordered to take sensitivity training; in the third case, the employee was suspended for two days and also ordered to take sensitivity training.
?"As far as I'?m concerned, one complaint is one too many, and we continue to strive to improve our record,"? Lacroix told the standing committee. He went on to outline elements of the public broadcaster?s extensive corporate policy on anti-discrimination and harassment.
Lacroix also criticized a recent report by Ezra Levant from Sun TV, which alleged that David Suzuki, host of CBC?s The Nature of Things, treated a visit to speak to students at Montreal?s John Abbott College last fall as an opportunity for ?procuring girls to be his escorts.? He quoted from a statement made by the school afterward that the Sun TV report?s negative comments and innuendos were ?"demeaning"? to the students and the college.
?"I don'?t expect the Sun'?s agenda to change,?" said Lacroix. "?But I believe it is important to call them out when they are deliberately misleading Canadians; when they'?re taking a serious issue like sexual harassment and turning it into a weapon for their own interests.?"
Committee member Geoff Regan, Liberal MP for Halifax West in Nova Scotia, called Sun Media'?s allegations against the CBC ?"serious"? and asked the committee chair if a representative from Quebecor would be invited to address the committee as part of its study of sexual harassment in the federal workplace.
"?I don'?t want this to become a witchhunt against Quebecor,"? said Lacroix. "?I just want to highlight [to the committee] the importance that the CBC puts on sexual harassment prevention. We feel this is a very important subject that was diminished by that kind of reporting. And the workplace of CBC isn?'t reflected in that article.?"
