8
A radio interview involving the co-host of a public affairs program on the French television
station TQS who had just been fired was the subject of a complaint in CHMP-FM re a
segment broadcast on Puisqu’il faut se lever (CBSC Decision 06/07-0607, April 7, 2008).
During the interview, the fired co-host claimed he had been fired due to a number of
complaints made against him from “ethnic groups”, the Quebec Bar Association and two
individual politicians whom he named. One of the politicians complained that the radio
station should not have allowed the television co-host to identify him on air as he had not
intended his complaint against TQS to be a public matter. Although broadcasters are not
usually allowed to name or to provide other identifying information about complainants on
air, the Panel did not find a breach for the following reasons:
In the matter at hand, much turns on the special circumstances associated with the
complaint filed. To begin, the Panel finds that the complainant’s characterization of
Stéphane Gendron’s comment as “petty” is unfounded. The Adjudicators have reviewed
the transcript and listened attentively to the tone of the fired host’s comments. The Panel
considers that M. Gendron was not in any way aggressive in his tone regarding the list of
the six complaints made. […] If anything, Gendron appeared rather stunned by the entire
turn of events and his own dismissal. The Panel detected neither hostility nor
vindictiveness, a material issue in the cases decided by it in the past […].
The Panel also puts considerable weight on the fact that the complainant in the matter
under consideration was a public figure acting as such. Not only was the complaint filed in
the CHMP case sent to the CBSC on Assemblée nationale letterhead, but the original
complaint of October 30, 2006 regarding an episode of L’avocat et le diable on TQS was
also sent on Assemblée national letterhead. Equally relevant, in the case of the 2006
matter is the fact that the complaint was initially sent to the CRTC (which forwarded it to
the CBSC for disposition, in the normal course). In such a case, the practice of the CRTC
is to file the actual complaint received on the broadcaster’s public file, and any member of
the public would be presumed to know that or, at least, not to have a right to object to such
“public” treatment. This is not, of course, to suggest that a legislator, whether provincial or
federal, has no right to file a complaint, but rather that an individual doing so on the
stationery of the state may reasonably be assumed to be engaged in the business of the
state and thus subject to more public scrutiny.
A listener to a radio station submitted feedback via a private Facebook message in which
she was critical of changes the station had made to its music and also of a particular host
in CFBK-FM re a “Shots & Afterthoughts” segment (CBSC Decision 14/15-0554,
August 28, 2015). The radio host responded to the criticisms on air during his editorial
segment entitled “Shots and Afterthoughts”. He stated her full name and then addressed
her criticisms of his interview style and presenting abilities. The complainant believed
that the host had violated her privacy by announcing her full name and had “defamed”
and “bullied” her on air. The Panel found that the broadcast did not insult the listener in
any way nor did the broadcast of her full name violate the code, due to the unique
circumstances of this situation:
Although the on-air person, Mr. Nickalls, responded to criticisms levelled against him and
his tone was somewhat defensive, the Panel does not consider that Mr. Nickalls, “aired an
extremely defamatory rant about [the complainant]” as mentioned by her […] nor did he