Executive fired in Ghomeshi’s wake sues broadcaster,

Todd Spencer claims he was ‘scapegoated’ after allegations arose against the radio host

A former top executive at CBC is suing the national broadcaster for wrongful dismissal, saying he was “scapegoated” in the wake of the scandal surrounding Jian Ghomeshi.

Todd Spencer, a 45-year-old former executive director of human resources, says the company where he worked for 11 years fired him for “political reasons” after he was involved in an internal investigation into allegations of sexual harassment against former Q radio host Ghomeshi, according to a statement of claim.

In a statement of defence, the CBC says Spencer failed to conduct an “appropriate” investigation and that he “deliberately misled” management about the allegations against Ghomeshi.

None of the allegations contained in the documents have been tested in court. All the allegations in this article come from the statements of claim and defence.

Both sides agree that a year after Spencer assumed the senior human resources job, he was brought into the loop on allegations against Ghomeshi raised by media critic Jesse Brown and Star investigative reporter Kevin Donovan.

In June 2014, Spencer claims, Chris Boyce, then executive director of radio and audio, was “concerned that Ghomeshi’s behaviour possibly crossed over into the workplace, becoming a serious human resources issue for the CBC.”

So, Spencer says, he was tasked with “ascertaining the veracity of and determining what to do with allegations that had been brought to the CBC’s attention.”

The CBC claims that Spencer “determined there had not been any inappropriate conduct in the CBC workplace by Ghomeshi.”

But that information conflicted with what staff of Ghomeshi’s Q told the CBC’s The Fifth Estate about their concerns in an episode that aired in November 2014. The documentary program also reported that almost all of the Q staff had not been contacted by management as part of an investigation.

In January 2015, Spencer was told he was being put on paid leave, but his claim says he was given “conflicting reasons”: that he needed a break and also that there were “inconsistencies” with what he disclosed about his investigation and what the employees told The Fifth Estate.

Spencer, whose dedication to the company is described at length in the claim, says he felt “abandoned and scapegoated by the CBC.”

After employment lawyer Janice Rubin was hired to conduct an independent workplace investigation and just before her report was published in April 2015, Spencer was called to a hotel across from the CBC and told he was fired.

The CBC says they were justified in firing Spencer, saying he failed in his investigation and that he misrepresented the investigating he had done, including that he “deliberately misled” the company about concerns raised by two employees and “failed to take reasonable and appropriate steps to follow up on such concerns.”

Spencer disputes all of those claims by the CBC.

Rubin’s scathing report found that CBC management “condoned” alleged abusive behaviour by Ghomeshi, and it criticized a culture that failed to protect employees from alleged harassment.

Spencer is seeking $640,000 in damages.

Claiming his compensation at the time of his dismissal totalled $260,000, he’s asking for $390,000 for breach of contract and wrongful dismissal, equal to 18 months “reasonable notice,” a further $100,000 each for breach of duty of honest performance of contractual obligations and the “bad faith manner” of the dismissal, plus $50,000 in punitive damages.

After he was fired by the CBC in October 2014, the 48-year-old Ghomeshi faced trial for multiple crimi- nal allegations. In February he was acquitted on four counts of sexual assault and one count of choking at trial.

This month, a charge of sexual assault against Ghomeshi involving former Q producer Kathryn Borel was withdrawn.

Ghomeshi apologized to Borel as part of a peace bond.

Borel told reporters afterward that when she went to the CBC for help “what I received in return was a directive that, yes, he could do this, and yes, it was my job to let him.”

CBC released a statement apologizing to Borel after the court appearance.

“What Ms Borel experienced in our workplace should never have happened and we sincerely apologize for what occurred,” the statement read. “As we said in April of 2015, the incidents that came to our attention as it relates to Mr. Ghomeshi’s conduct in our workplace were simply unacceptable.

“We apologized then and we do again today.”