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

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 0.70

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, 1.00

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 0.77

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. 0.99

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. 0.56

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, 0.83

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.

Juno News - July 09, 2025

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

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript