Bungled Jian Ghomeshi investigation playing out at taxpayers’ expense | Financial Post
Two bungled sexual harassment investigations — the CBC versus Jian Ghomeshi and inside the federal Liberal party — are both playing out in the public eye at taxpayer expense. In both cases, we taxpayers are getting awfully paltry “bang for our buck,” since both investigations are already being handled abysmally and have a strong likelihood of coming up short.
The Ghomeshi story is morphing from concern about the host’s conduct into evolving disquiet as to whether his behaviour was covered up by CBC management, and how pervasive the culture of harassment may be at the CBC.
If, as is increasingly alleged (and as I have personally been told by one complainant), management took no action after being informed of Ghomeshi’s misconduct, there could not only be sanctions by the Canadian Human Rights Commission but significant negligence lawsuits from victimized women both against CBC managers and the corporation itself.
Damages for negligence can be dramatically higher than in dismissal cases, amounting, in extreme cases, to income for the rest of a complainant’s presumed working life (compared to the 24-month effective limit for wrongful dismissal).
The CBC has strong incentives to see that incriminating facts never come to public light. This investigation unfortunately has the appearance of being designed with that very resistance in mind. Though it is ostensibly a publicly owned institution, the CBC has made it clear that the investigator’s specific findings will never be revealed and all the public will be permitted to know is the recommendations for improving the corporate work environment. According to CBC spokesman Chuck Thompson, the CBC doesn’t want to “compromise the confidentiality we promised any current or former employee that may come forward.”
