Juno News - July 09, 2025


Lawyer of CBC whistleblower SPEAKS OUT about Travis Dhanraj’s treatment at the state broadcaster


Episode Stats

Length

21 minutes

Words per Minute

171.45366

Word Count

3,709

Sentence Count

248

Misogynist Sentences

3

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 Hi, I'm Candace Malcolm, and this is The Candace Malcolm Show. Wow, folks, we have a great
00:00:07.380 episode for you today. We're going to go a little deeper into the story we covered yesterday,
00:00:12.160 which is just the absolute dumpster fire that is happening over at the state broadcaster,
00:00:16.520 over at the CBC. It is imploding in real time, like we told you yesterday. And so I'm very
00:00:21.160 pleased today we are going to be joined by Travis Danraj, the whistleblower over at the CBC.
00:00:26.900 We're joined by his lawyer, Catherine Marshall. So just to give you a quick overview of what has
00:00:32.320 happened. So Travis Danraj is a veteran broadcast journalist with over two decades of experience.
00:00:38.320 He started his career in Alberta at Global News, later becoming their first bureau chief at Queen's
00:00:43.920 Park here in Toronto. He became the host of CBC's Marketplace in 2021, and he remained with that
00:00:50.360 program until early 2024. And then basically, the CBC gave him a new primetime show. He launched
00:00:57.060 this new primetime show called Canada Tonight. Look, folks, I don't watch the CBC, so I wasn't
00:01:01.740 paying very close attention to this. But I'm told by people who know the CBC that this was actually a
00:01:06.580 pretty good show for CBC standards, that Danraj was very fair. He was more of a moderate. He wanted
00:01:12.120 to hear from both sides. He actually wanted to talk about the controversial social issues that plague
00:01:17.220 our country, particularly the ones coming from the left. And this is what apparently made the CBC
00:01:22.360 angry, made the elites and the higher ups at CBC not like him because he wanted to have those
00:01:26.920 conversations like the ones that we have here at Juno News. And so that was sort of the end of it.
00:01:32.680 He put out public letters over the weekend saying that he was forced out of the CBC. So he issued that
00:01:38.320 letter to his colleagues and another one to CBC leadership saying that he was leaving. It was not
00:01:42.660 voluntary. He was being forced out. So again, I'm pleased again to be joined today by Catherine
00:01:48.780 Marshall. Catherine is a employment and human rights lawyer. She founded her own law firm
00:01:54.180 called Marshall Law. What a great name for a law firm. She advocates for victims of wrongful
00:01:58.180 termination, discrimination and harassment. So Catherine, welcome to the show. Thank you so
00:02:02.380 much for joining us. Thanks for having me. Okay, so walk us through this story. You are
00:02:08.140 representing Travis. Tell us about what his claims are and what's happened.
00:02:12.660 Yeah, I mean, it's a really explosive case. Look, Travis has been dealing with the CBC
00:02:19.500 for a long time. I mean, he's been an employee for years. But over time, he experienced a lot
00:02:26.420 of discrimination. He was dissuaded from bringing conservative voices onto the show, the show that
00:02:33.600 they gave him. And they retaliated against him. They harassed him. He was being bullied by some senior
00:02:42.020 correspondents in Ottawa. I think you can guess maybe who I'm talking about. And there'll be more
00:02:47.600 shared about that a bit later. And, you know, finally, the CBC tried to break him, but he decided
00:02:54.100 he wasn't going to be muzzled. They wanted him to sign an NDA, and he refused. And he has resigned.
00:03:02.080 And he is going to use his voice. And there will be more. There will be a lot more to come on this
00:03:08.860 case. But I think the CBC is probably shaking in their boots about what he's going to be exposing.
00:03:15.920 Well, it seems like they have something to hide here. I wanted to zero in on something you said
00:03:21.100 that he tried to have conservative voices on his show, and that CBC objected to that. I'm sorry,
00:03:27.720 like, conservatives are like half the country, right? And so this idea that they don't want to
00:03:31.400 have conservative voices. Can you elaborate on that? Like, do you mean partisan conservatives? Or
00:03:35.420 do you mean people who hold small-c conservative traditional values in this country?
00:03:40.140 I mean, small-c conservatives, conservative politicians. I mean, Travis is a journalist,
00:03:44.020 right? Like, he had his show, and he wanted to debate issues and actually debate them from all
00:03:50.580 angles, not just, you know, have four people who are all debating it from the liberal point of view.
00:03:56.680 And when he would try and bring on, like, small-c conservative voices or conservative politicians
00:04:02.640 just to, you know, to actually have diversity of opinion, he would get stonewalled, and he would get
00:04:09.440 blocked, and he would get attacked from inside, from internally at the CBC. That was shocking to
00:04:17.300 him, right? Because, again, he's thinking, well, this is my job as a journalist, is to actually
00:04:24.400 explore issues and get down to the truth. So I think the CBC looked at him as a token.
00:04:34.480 I think they looked at his skin color, and they thought he was going to expose a certain worldview,
00:04:41.640 a liberal worldview. And when they didn't, or when he didn't, they freaked out.
00:04:47.020 And they tried to muzzle him.
00:04:50.180 Honestly, it sounds a little bit like what happened to Jamil Javani at Bell. I think that he sort of has
00:04:54.960 a similar story to tell. You know, I've heard some rumors, Catherine, that CBC Power and Politics host
00:05:00.800 David Cochran, specifically, was upset because conservative MPs basically refused to go on his
00:05:07.660 show because he was so incredibly unfair to them. He wouldn't give them the proper time
00:05:11.680 to explain their perspectives. He would talk over them. We've showed clips dozens of times on this
00:05:17.040 show of David Cochran acting this way. So eventually, conservative MPs said, enough is enough.
00:05:21.080 We're all refusing to go on your show. And yet, you know, they were still willing to go on other
00:05:27.060 CBC shows, including Travis's show, and that this might have kind of been part of what was happening
00:05:32.240 behind the scenes. Is there any validity to that? And can you comment on that?
00:05:37.680 Well, with respect to those specific examples, I will tell you, Candace, and I haven't told anyone
00:05:44.400 that this yet, there are many, many specific examples we will be sharing later.
00:05:50.980 We have names, we have receipts, we have emails. But to your point, yes, there was a lot of
00:06:03.100 resentment, I think, towards Travis from certain correspondents in Ottawa about the fact that,
00:06:10.220 you know, conservatives actually felt comfortable going on Travis's show because he wasn't completely
00:06:16.300 biased. Interesting. I want to just read a particular part that came out of Brian Lilly.
00:06:23.100 Brian Lilly has been doing some great reporting on this. And he wrote this in the Toronto Sun. I guess
00:06:28.100 this is taken from Travis's letter. And so I'm quoting from Travis's letter yesterday. He says,
00:06:32.960 I was repeatedly denied access to key newsmakers. Internal booking and editorial protocols were
00:06:38.580 weaponized to create structural barriers for some while empowering others, particularly a small circle
00:06:44.280 of senior Ottawa-based journalists. We can all imagine who that is, Catherine. When I questioned
00:06:48.800 these imbalances, I was met with silence, resistance, and eventually retaliation. I was fighting for
00:06:53.720 balance and accused of being on a crusade. So, you know, Catherine, I don't have a lot of respect for
00:07:00.400 the state broadcaster. I think incredibly lowly of them. And yet, if I were to imagine what the culture
00:07:05.480 is like over there, and I were to say, you know, I wonder what the conversations happen behind closed
00:07:10.920 doors. What do they really think of conservatives and conservative ideas? And the way that Travis is
00:07:16.200 describing this, being met by just childish behavior, bullying, it seems, just like a total,
00:07:22.360 not just like a resistance to intellectual diversity, but hostility towards even someone
00:07:27.920 having the gall to even say, hey, we should probably have a little bit of balance on our network. We
00:07:32.640 should probably try to represent the other half of the country. This could be parody. And yet,
00:07:38.940 apparently, this is what is happening. What can you comment on that?
00:07:43.580 Yeah, I mean, like, I, like, I think, like, hostility is definitely the right word to use. I mean,
00:07:52.900 it was totally hostile. It was completely inappropriate. The mothership seems to be run by a gang of a very
00:08:02.920 close knit gang of Ottawa based correspondents. And I think you can guess who those people are.
00:08:07.960 Who are pretty much micromanaging everything. I have seen Candace, the emails, I have seen
00:08:15.960 what was going on behind the scenes. And it was shocking. Now I do a lot of cases involving workplace
00:08:23.220 bullying and harassment and toxicity. And I have to say, from what I've seen at CBC, it's one of the
00:08:28.920 most toxic workplaces I've witnessed. Travis was simply trying to do his job. And he was being
00:08:36.680 treated like the enemy. He was being treated like he was doing something wrong, something evil. And
00:08:46.360 they really did try and break him. And again, as to my earlier point, I think there was resentment
00:08:53.400 that he was able to book certain guests, because they did feel comfortable coming on his show,
00:08:59.160 because they knew they were going to get a fair shake, they knew they weren't going to be
00:09:02.760 like, thrown the liberal talking points and sandbagged. So there was resentment that he could get
00:09:09.560 certain guests and then that would be barred by certain individuals and caused Travis to be very
00:09:21.320 stressed out. And he had to go take a leave. And Candace, they tried to make him sign an NDA
00:09:27.640 when he posted that tweet about Catherine Tate.
00:09:31.000 Right. So just to provide some more background on that, the story that came out was that in the wake
00:09:39.880 of CBC layoffs and people losing their job in newsrooms across the country, we learned that the
00:09:45.320 executives over at the CBC were taking multimillion dollar bonuses. And it was probably the biggest
00:09:50.760 story in the country, at least on social media. And so Travis, being a journalist, just said, you know,
00:09:55.800 I issue an invitation to the president of the CBC to come on the show and just talk about it and
00:10:00.120 explain what's happened, which to me seemed pretty reasonable, seemed pretty good journalism. I admit,
00:10:04.440 I thought, Hey, he's got, he's got courage to invite his boss onto a show like that. But in some
00:10:08.760 ways he was giving her a lifeline. He was saying, Hey, I'll give you a platform to just explain to the
00:10:14.040 people in the country, what's happening. And it seemed like to me that they took that as, you know,
00:10:20.520 some kind of a hostile act.
00:10:22.600 Oh, yes, that was, they treated that like it was a cardinal sin. But of course, for them, it was the
00:10:28.920 excuse they needed to really strip him from the air because they were already very frustrated with
00:10:36.440 Travis. They, because he wasn't being their little puppet spokesperson. He was actually trying to
00:10:42.120 engage in real journalism and real diversity of thought. So they use that as the, that was a catalyst
00:10:48.360 for them stripping him off the air. And then they offered him, this was the offer. They said,
00:10:55.640 you can come back to work in a demoted role. So no longer host of your own show with a pay cut,
00:11:04.520 but you have to sign a gig order. And they presented him with this crazy document.
00:11:11.240 And of course he refused to sign it. It was Stalin-esque. It's like in what work I've never
00:11:17.480 seen this in a workplace. Like, and I've dealt with hundreds of workplaces in this country, big,
00:11:22.120 giant corporations. I've never seen a workplace present their own employee with a gag order.
00:11:29.720 It is Stalin-esque. And, you know, we criticize the CBC for their ideological lens that they put
00:11:34.440 into every news story, but it also just seems like it's run by pretty terrible people. So the latest
00:11:39.160 update on this story is that according to the CBC, Danraj is still employed there. So they are rejecting
00:11:46.440 his resignation letter. So this is, again, Brian Lilly reporting in the Toronto Sun. Danraj still
00:11:51.560 employed, CBC says, despite going public with his resignation. This seems like, again, Catherine,
00:11:58.520 some kind of attempt to control him and to gag him. What do you make of this?
00:12:04.600 It's like an abusive relationship. It's like when you try and leave your abuser and they don't let you.
00:12:11.080 I honestly look at this employment relationship as being akin to abuse. To me, it's completely insane
00:12:21.400 that they rejected his resignation. He couldn't have been more forthright and more clear about his
00:12:31.320 resignation and that he was leaving and the reasons why. He sent a letter in, he emailed his coworkers,
00:12:37.560 and CBC wrote to me after that and said, we consider him to still be an employee. We don't
00:12:45.640 accept his resignation. If he wants to resign, he has to sign a whole bunch of forms. And I just said
00:12:52.600 to them, I really think you guys need to spend some time looking at your policies and your internal
00:12:59.240 culture because this is crazy. So yes, CBC has not accepted his resignation. They are out there telling
00:13:06.040 the media that he's still an employee. I would like to be very clear today on your show, Candace.
00:13:11.160 Travis is not an employee of CC anymore. He resigned, involuntarily, but he resigned.
00:13:18.120 Well, good for him for doing that. And again, it just seems like the CBC is trying to manipulate him
00:13:23.800 in some way by saying that he's still an employee, so he probably still has to abide by CBC rules and
00:13:29.480 standards. I'm curious, in the Toronto Sun piece, it said that he's still considering his various legal
00:13:35.800 options. But I think because he's part of the CBC union, he is limited in terms of whether or not
00:13:42.600 he can sue the CBC and what that looks like. You mentioned, you were quoted saying that you're
00:13:47.880 considering a Human Rights Commission filing. So can you walk us through what the next steps will be for
00:13:53.480 Travis and what kind of legal avenues he might have here? Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think you hit
00:13:59.080 the nail on the head. Really, the CBC wants to maintain control over him. That's really the true reason
00:14:04.680 why they're not accepting his resignation. They want to feel like they still have control over him and can
00:14:09.880 lord the collective bargaining agreement over him and their internal policies. They don't like that he
00:14:16.360 took control of the situation. But yes, I want to talk about his union for a second because they are so
00:14:23.320 useless. I really wondered, was the union representing Travis or were they representing CBC? From what I
00:14:33.480 saw, it looked like they were representing CBC. They were certainly in cahoots with the CBC. They
00:14:40.520 weren't doing anything for him. They knew all of the things that were happening. They didn't do anything.
00:14:46.760 No grievance was filed. Travis wrote a long complaint against certain individuals for bullying,
00:14:54.520 harassment, retaliation. It was not investigated. That's a breach of his employment in human rights.
00:15:02.040 So because he's in the union, he cannot sue the CBC civilly. However, he can sue them in human rights
00:15:09.000 court. No collective bargaining agreement or union can take away your right to enforce your own human
00:15:16.440 rights. So he can sue in the Canadian Human Rights Commission for breaches of his human rights. I
00:15:25.640 think the fact that he was targeted because of his desire to have a diversity of opinions. He was
00:15:34.760 tokenized because of the color of his skin. And then he was retaliated against and mistreated and
00:15:40.920 intimidated while he was on a leave because he was so stressed from the way they were treating him.
00:15:49.000 Those are all human rights violations. So CBC will have to answer to us in court.
00:15:54.520 Well, we will look forward to following along with this story, Catherine. You know,
00:15:58.600 it's interesting that you say that the union hasn't been helpful because this is kind of what a union is
00:16:02.520 for is to defend their employees. And it brings me back. Someone pointed this out to me on X the other day,
00:16:08.680 which was that when the entire debacle with Jeon Kameshi happened, right, Jeon Kameshi was found
00:16:14.360 to have just completely been harassing women in his workplace. And it seemed like the CBC knew about
00:16:20.520 it at the time, right? He was a very famous host at the time. He was the golden boy of the CBC. His fame
00:16:26.680 went beyond Canada and beyond the CBC. And even though the organization knew that these kind of stories
00:16:34.120 were happening, that he was abusing people, that women were afraid of him and that bad things were
00:16:39.480 happening, they just kind of brushed it all aside. There's so many examples of this, Catherine. It
00:16:45.960 reminds me too of Tara Henley back in 2022. So three years ago, she came out with an absolute bombshell.
00:16:51.960 She wrote in the National Post, why I quit the CBC. She said to work at the CBC in the current climate is
00:16:58.280 to embrace cognitive dissidence and abandon journalistic integrity. A lot of the complaints
00:17:03.800 that she writes are kind of similar. And yet, with no disrespect to Tara Henley, she was sort of a
00:17:09.560 behind-the-scenes producer. She would occasionally have an on-air role. She wasn't in a position like
00:17:15.480 Travis where she had her own show. So, you know, I think that we all know that this behavior exists in
00:17:21.400 the CBC has going back decades now. And I think that Travis is sort of the most high-profile, biggest
00:17:28.120 name to come out and say this thing. I hope it causes a reckoning. I hope that enough Canadians,
00:17:33.800 a tipping point of Canadians say, you know, that whole Pierre Polyev line of defunding the CBC,
00:17:39.240 that wasn't just sort of like a partisan shtick. There is something severely wrong and rotten at the
00:17:44.760 state broadcaster beyond just the bias against conservatives. It is a culture where it just,
00:17:52.200 I don't even know how to describe it, but it just seems so toxic and so hypocritical.
00:17:56.840 I almost like, to me, there's like a cult, there's a sort of a cultish environment. The fact that, again,
00:18:05.320 they're not even allowing, that they think that they have to approve his resignation tells you
00:18:12.040 everything you need to know about how they believe they control and own the journalists who work
00:18:17.240 there. And I talked to a lot of journalists. I actually represent a lot of journalists. I've
00:18:21.720 spoken to a lot of people at CBC, as you can probably imagine, Candace, since the story broke,
00:18:26.520 my inbox has been inundated. I have lots of emails from former CBC employees telling me very similar
00:18:34.760 stories to Travis. Travis is a whistleblower and you're absolutely right Candace. He's not doing
00:18:43.880 this for himself. He truly wants there to be change at CBC. He wants there to be some exposure and it's
00:18:52.920 not easy being the pointy end of the spear and like putting yourself out there. And we're fully expecting
00:18:57.800 CBC to try and trash his reputation and to come out with spin against him. We're waiting for it.
00:19:04.600 So it's a hard thing to do and it takes a lot of bravery, but he's doing it because he wants there
00:19:09.480 to be actual change. He doesn't want to just, you know, again, like they wanted him to sign a gag
00:19:15.880 order. I kind of wonder, and I'll find this out in the legal proceeding, how many people have they had
00:19:20.920 signed this gag order over the years? It's such a good question. And, you know, the journalism side of
00:19:29.080 me, I want to, I want to talk to you maybe off air about some of those emails. Maybe we can,
00:19:33.240 we can break some more news if any of those people are willing to come on the Candace Malcolm show or
00:19:37.560 talk to Juno news. But again, this just needs to be exposed because those of us kind of like it with,
00:19:42.440 you know, in and around the media world and media circles, particularly in Toronto and Ottawa,
00:19:47.480 everyone knows this stuff happens and it's time for the rest of the country to learn as well and to
00:19:52.200 realize again, just how corrupted our state broadcaster has become and how wrong it is that
00:19:58.280 every time there's an election, the liberal parties are out, the liberal parties out there
00:20:02.040 pledging more money and bribing them more with our tax dollars, which makes them more radicalized
00:20:07.160 against conservatives and less likely to give conservatives a fair shake. So it's, it's definitely
00:20:12.120 this toxic cycle that's happening in our country. And I applaud you for taking on this case and for
00:20:16.600 exposing us. So any, any, any final thoughts on, on this case, Catherine? Well, honestly,
00:20:23.000 it's going to be a massive case. I mean, it's so rare that we get a case where we have someone
00:20:27.400 like Travis, who's willing to speak out and to share, like what really goes on behind the scenes
00:20:34.440 our public broadcaster. So I think Brian Lilly put it best. Like, I mean, they're, they think
00:20:41.480 they're hotel California and that you can never leave, but you know, Travis escaped, he broke free.
00:20:47.320 They didn't get to silence him. They didn't gag him. They didn't break him. And I think he's
00:20:52.440 their worst nightmare right now. And they should be concerned about what's to come.
00:20:57.560 Wow. Well, we can't wait to hear more from this case and to follow it. Catherine Marshall,
00:21:01.880 thank you so much for joining the shows. Catherine Marshall, founder of Marshall Law Firm, and she is
00:21:07.240 representing Travis Danraj in this bombshell case where he was publicly ousted from the publicly
00:21:14.440 push out of the CBC. So Catherine, thank you so much.
00:21:17.160 Catherine Marshall, thank you for having me.
00:21:19.160 All right, folks. That's all the time we have for today. We'll be back again tomorrow
00:21:21.720 with all the news of Candace Malcolm. This is the Candace Malcolm Show. Thank you and God bless.
00:21:31.240 Thank you.
00:21:35.960 Thank you.