A record number of complaints were submitted to the CBC ombudsman during the recent federal election campaign.
Ombudsman Maxime Bertrand said her office received a higher number of complaints in April than in the “previous three months combined.”
Bertrand identified two reasons for the high number of complaints in April.
“I believe the flood of complaints is circumstantial, largely due to two factors: The orchestrated campaigns I wrote at length about last month [and] the federal election,” she said in a May 6 post, referring to complaints received about CBC personality Rosemary Barton.
In the April 1 post Bertrand referenced, she wrote about complaints made about Barton, questioning if they were part of a campaign to have her reassigned or fired.
“A few complainants submitted detailed grievances that were clearly personal in nature,” she wrote in the April 1 post. “However, the vast majority seemed to follow a directive, with most misquoting Ms. Barton.”
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The ombudsman said that aside from responses to her earlier post, “it was the federal election that generated the most complaints in April, the highlight being the leaders’ debates.”
Complaints fell into one of two categories, Bertrand said. There were those who felt the broadcaster “bent over backwards to portray the Liberals in a good light,” she wrote, while other complainants “insisted” the CBC “favoured the Conservatives” and said the broadcaster behaved with “apparent leniency” toward them compared to the Liberal Party.
The CBC received several complaints for its story about Liberal staffers planting campaign buttons with inflammatory slogans at a conservative event.
Election staffers for the Liberals placed buttons with phrases like “Free Alberta” and “Lock up Justin” at the Canada Strong and Free Network conference held from April 9 to 12 at a hotel in downtown Ottawa. The conference aims to give conservative Canadians a place to discuss policy proposals and build connections.
After gaining access to the conference and strategically placing the buttons, the Liberal staff members headed to a bar near Parliament Hill. They were overheard discussing their actions by a CBC reporter and a Conservative Party staff member.
“I’m baffled that this was published, especially considering the damage it could do to the LPC’s campaign,” one complainant wrote.
“The article is ambiguous about whether the reporter overheard Liberal staffers themselves or Conservatives speculating over beers about Liberal involvement. This lack of clarity is a significant lapse in reporting and undermines the credibility of the story,” another wrote.
Bertrand said the story was confirmed.
“Liberal leader Mark Carney called the staffers’ behaviour ’totally unacceptable’ and, subsequently, they were reassigned,” Bertrand wrote.
The ombudsman said another main issue for complaints was the media scrum following the leaders debates.
After the French leaders debate, CBC personalities Rosemary Barton, Adrienne Arseneault, and David Cochrane made statements about the post-debate media scrum.
“There’s three right wing, very right-wing media, you can call them media, websites that are present in there,” Barton said.
Cochrane was criticized for saying, “I think the debate commission is going to need to be accountable for what’s kind of happening here.”
Those comments led to several complaints and accusations of CBC bias, according to the ombudsman.
One viewer said the comments were “discriminatory, puerile, and unprofessional” and said they were concerned that tax dollars were going to pay for a “diatribe and discriminatory journalism.”
“It’s not the first time that this kind of denigration of other journalists has happened on CBC and it needs to stop now,” the complainant wrote.
Barton was also criticized for saying, “There have been remains of indigenous children found in various places around the country,” following a Rebel News question to NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh.
The question was about what Singh would do to keep Christians safe after hundreds of churches have been burned down following the discoveries of “anomalies” on former residential school sites.
Singh thanked the reporter for the question but said he was not going to respond because the organization, Rebel News, promoted “misinformation and disinformation.”
One viewer wrote in to say that Barton “chose to misrepresent the facts.”
CBC issued a correction to Barton’s comments, saying it has reported on “multiple occasions” that several indigenous communities have discovered “potential burial sites or unmarked graves.”
However, Bertrand said she also received a complaint about the correction, which said it was “hardly adequate.”
“Her [Barton’s] comment was made in prime time to an audience of the Canadian electorate, and the correction belongs in an equally prominent position,” the complainant said.
Additionally, CBC received complaints following the debate organizer’s decision to cancel the media scrum after the English language leadership debate.
“The CBC reported that confrontations had occurred behind the scenes, i.e., in the media room and on set, and that the situation had deteriorated rapidly,” Bertrand said.
Rebel News responded to the cancellation by releasing a post sharing its side of the situation, accusing Cochrane of trying to “discredit” the organization.
Some viewers wrote in to the ombudsman, blaming Cochrane for the scrum cancellation.
“As a Canadian voter, I had the right to hear the questions and the answer. By his actions, he effectively swayed or influenced voters,” one complaint said.
CBC’s ombudsman said that live broadcasts can be “perilous” when controversial issues are “on the table.”
“In these situations, a single word, an unclear statement or a lack of context can be problematic.”
Bertrand said that it was also “tricky” for a media organization to report on itself.
“The risk of becoming (as opposed to presenting) the story is that much higher,” she wrote. “This is not to say it should never be done; indeed, sometimes it’s unavoidable. I am merely observing that it can backfire.”
