NOT EVEN A YEAR INTO HIS JOB as board chairman of CBC-Radio Canada, Guy Fournier scarcely had time to make an impact before resigning Tuesday, smothered (as reported by Cartt.ca) by ridicule for a succession of blunders about bestiality, bowel movements, and the lack of national unity cheerleading from the French-language service.
Appointed by then-Heritage Minister Liza Frulla in the dying days of the Liberal government last October, the 75-year old Quebec film producer, scriptwriter and author had only a few months to make an impression on his new political overseer, Bev Oda. Evidently, it wasn’t a good one.
Fournier “has increasingly lost the confidence of Canada’s new government,” the Conservative Heritage Minister said Tuesday in accepting his “voluntary” resignation. CBC president Robert Rabinovitch assumes his job until a new chair is appointed.
Liberal MP Denis Coderre didn’t jump to his defence either. Fournier “flushed himself”, Coderre said. “He was victim of his own turpitude,” referring to his appearance Sunday night on Radio-Canada’s top-rated TV talk show “Tout le monde en parle”, where he tried to explain the remarks that got him into trouble the most.
The most recent were found in a column he wrote for the popular French-language gossip/entertainment magazine “7 Jours”, published by TVA Publications, part of the Quebecor media family. The column is a compilation of off-beat news and bizarre statistics, but in his last one, published Sept. 9th, he passed along information that he picked up off the Internet.
He wrote that in Lebanon, “the law allows men to have sexual relations with animals, as long as it’s with females! Doing it with male animals could result in the death penalty!”
The claim was, of course, wrong, and members of the Lebanese community in Quebec were appalled. Alain-Michel Ayache, who teaches political science at the Université du Québec in Montreal, filed a legal letter with Fournier and TVA Publications, threatening a lawsuit if an apology was not forthcoming.
Oda herself had earlier summoned Fournier to retract the claim, saying the “inexactitude” was “troubling”, especially given his role as CBC’s chairman.
He did apologize Sunday night, saying “I did it to make people smile. But it shocked people in the Lebanese diaspora and for that, I am sorry.”
Ayache told Cartt.ca he will discuss with his lawyer whether or not Fournier’s apology on TV is enough; he is also awaiting to see if “7 Jours” issues a retraction in this week’s edition.
“The government has taken this seriously,” Ayache said. “But I’m not sure yet if Fournier has. We will see if he has apologized in an appropriate way.”
Daniel Giroux, secretary-general of Université Laval’s Media Studies Centre, said after watching Fournier’s TV performance Sunday, he felt “he would probably have to resign”.
After dealing with his Lebanese remark, Fournier had to listen to himself extol the pleasures of defecating. The tape of that May interview, on Toronto community radio station CHOQ-FM, had the studio audience rolling in the aisles.
“Defecating has almost the same sensation as an orgasm when making love…and what is the most extraordinary is that as you grow older, you continue to faire caca (defecate) once a day…while it’s difficult to make love once a day. So really, the pleasure is more enduring and more frequent.”
That opened the door for Tout le monde en parle’s resident humourist, Dany Turcotte, to deliver a credibility-crushing coup de grace, before an audience of more than 1.7 million people, referring to him as chairman of “Radio-Caca-nada”.
Giroux pointed out that in a 50-year career, Fournier had established an impressive track record in TV, films, and print, and had much to offer.
“He’s someone of great intelligence. But he’s also someone who’s used to having his freedom to speak, and that’s not very compatible with his role as chairman,” Giroux said.
Ian Morrison, spokesperson for Friends of Canadian Broadcasting, called his resignation “appropriate”.
“However, I have a lot of respect for Mr. Fournier. This is a blip in a distinguished career. And when it comes to looking at his ledger, this will be balanced by everything else he did.”
Marc-François Bernier, a journalism professor at l’Université d’Ottawa, said just for his erroneous comments on Lebanese law alone, he needed to resign.
“As for the rest of it, that was just bad taste. The worst enemy of Guy Fournier is Guy Fournier. It’s too bad because he did some important things in TV. But it’s not funny for the CBC to be associated and splattered by this. The CBC merits somebody serious.”
Giroux said it’s a shame for the CBC to lose its chairman before he had a chance to make his mark.
“It’s a role that is of great importance because it’s supposed to bring direction and set the corporation’s orientation.”
But Morrison said that CBC’s Board has at least three other members with strong broadcasting credentials – Johane Brunet, Peter Herrndorf, and Trina McQueen.
“The impact of their appointments was to put people on the board with way more TV, production, and scheduling experience than current management has.”
The vacancy though hands the government “a bit of a hot potato”, Morrison said. “I think it would be quite unlikely to do anything negative to the CBC as an institution in this mandate because it’s popular with the public.”
Bernier said that at the very least, the CBC needs someone who won’t tarnish its image, “especially in English Canada, where there are often strong attacks against the CBC. You can’t be giving those people ammunition.
“I hope the next chairman will reflect the respect that the institution deserves, and not be a political appointee,” Bernier said. “It’s a wonderful occasion for the House of Commons to choose, or to have a hearing, as it did with the Chief Justice, or at least have a debate. But I fear it will be another political appointee. And that only hurts the institution.”
Morrison agreed, pointing out the government allowed the Canada Council for the Arts to find its new Director last spring. The Council’s choice, Robert Sirman, was accepted by the government and confirmed by the Standing Committee on Canadian Heritage.
For now, the Minister has not had a chance to think about a replacement, said her press secretary Véronique Bruneau, nor about any possible change in the appointment process. At any rate, she said, the process is set out in the Broadcasting Act.
Glenn Wanamaker is Cartt.ca’s Quebec editor.
