Q employees not questioned during CBC’s Ghomeshi probe despite claims of serious investigation: report

Jian Ghomeshi makes his way through a mob of media with his lawyer Marie Henein (right) at a Toronto court. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese Photo: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darren Calabrese

By Joseph Brean

Despite claiming to have undertaken a serious internal investigation of the Jian Ghomeshi affair, CBC executives did not ask a single Q employee a single question, according to an investigation by the CBC investigative program the fifth estate.

The program surveyed 17 people who worked on the arts radio show last summer, and spoke with everyone but the former executive producer.

“No one said they’d been approached [by management], no questions ever asked,” said Gillian Findlay, host of the fifth estate, airing Friday night.

Her name is known to few, but her case made headlines for years in Montreal.

In late 2011, an 18-year-old Concordia University student accused three McGill University football players of sexually assaulting her after she and a friend were invited to their apartment.

Asked to explain the discrepancy, Chris Boyce, head of CBC Radio, said he could not, and that it was a question for Janice Rubin, the outside counsel hired to probe the institutional response.

The finding is the most shocking revelation in an investigation that pokes holes in the official account of how CBC responded over the past year to growing evidence of Mr. Ghomeshi’s behaviour, both within the CBC and in his private life. He now faces criminal charges of sexual assault and overcoming resistance by choking.

It also reports Mr. Ghomeshi lied in his notorious Facebook post about being offered the chance to walk away quietly before he was fired, to leave the impression it was his own decision.

Jian Ghomeshi leaves Toronto’s Yonge and College Courthouse after making bail. [Peter J. Thompson/National Post]

“That is untrue,” said Mr. Boyce. He said Mr. Ghomeshi was offered 24 hours to provide more information, possibly about a mental illness. “He was very upset, he maintained his innocence and beyond that, I’m not comfortable getting into details.”

The fifth estate investigation does not reveal new alleged victims, and many of the accounts have been previously reported. None are named.

The investigation advances the theory that CBC might have been slow to take action against its most marketable star.

In interviews with two former producers, Sean Foley and Brian Coulton, it describes how Mr. Ghomeshi “broke down” and confessed to them while on location in Winnipeg last spring, saying he likes rough sex and an angry ex-girlfriend is “threatening to tell everybody.” He said he was confident he had done nothing illegal.

Later, Mr. Ghomeshi revealed to his producers that someone was posting allegations about him on Twitter under the name @BigEarsTeddy, which is a toy bear he uses for anxiety relief. Neither knew what to do. One started having panic attacks.

In late June, independent journalist Jesse Brown, who has partnered in his investigation with the Toronto Star, sent an email to Q employees, laying out the allegations as he understood them, specifically mentioning the crime of assault, and saying the “inappropriate behaviour may have crossed over into the workplace.”

Mr. Foley and Mr. Coulton went to their superiors with this email and the Twitter account, confident the CBC would take it seriously. Mr. Boyce said none of the material they presented was new to executives, and that the “majority” was not about the workplace. Mr. Boyce said he believed the tweets, at least, were “inaccurate.” But CBC did investigate.

Radio host and author Jian Ghomeshi. Darren Calabrese/National Post

CBC spokesman Chuck Thompson said the investigation consisted of a review of Mr. Ghomeshi’s file, cross-referenced with other disciplinary issues, and interviews conducted “very discreetly” with a cross-section of managers, program leaders and Qemployees. He said it found no evidence of sexual harassment.

In the fifth estate show, Mr. Boyce said the CBC did not seek more information from theToronto Star about what it knew of the alleged victims, nor try to find out who was behind the @BigEarsTeddy account.

“Our job is not to be the police,” he said. Even as the CBC fired Mr. Ghomeshi, based on what has been described as evidence of assault, it did not go to police. Mr. Boyce said, in hindsight, if he could do it again, he might have done so.

@JosephBrean