The Candice Malcolm Show - 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

00:00:07.600 episode for you today. We're going to go a little deeper into the story we covered yesterday,

00:00:12.400 which is just the absolute dumpster fire that is happening over at the state broadcaster,

00:00:16.560 over at the CBC. It is imploding in real time like we told you yesterday. And so I'm very

00:00:21.200 pleased today we are going to be joined by Travis Danraj, the whistleblower over at the CBC. We're

00:00:27.280 joined by his lawyer, Catherine Marshall. So just to give you a quick overview of what has happened.

00:00:32.720 So Travis Danraj is a veteran broadcast journalist with over two decades of experience. He started

00:00:38.720 his career in Alberta at Global News, later becoming their first bureau chief at Queen's Park here in

00:00:44.560 Toronto. He became the host of CBC's Marketplace in 2021 and he remained with that program until early

00:00:51.600 2024. And then basically the CBC gave him a new primetime show. He launched this new primetime

00:00:58.000 show called Canada Tonight. Look, folks, I don't watch the CBC, so I wasn't paying very close attention

00:01:02.800 to this. But I'm told by people who know the CBC that this was actually a pretty good show for CBC

00:01:07.840 standards, that Danraj was very fair. He was more of a moderate. He wanted to hear from both sides.

00:01:13.280 He actually wanted to talk about the controversial social issues that plague our country, particularly

00:01:18.240 the ones coming from the left. And this is what apparently made the CBC angry, made the elites

00:01:23.600 and the higher ups at CBC not like him because he wanted to have those conversations like the ones

00:01:27.920 that we have here at Juno News. And so that was sort of the end of it. He put out public letters

00:01:34.160 over the weekend saying that he was forced out of the CBC. So he issued that letter to his colleagues

00:01:39.440 and another one to CBC leadership saying that he was leaving. It was not voluntary. He was being forced

00:01:44.800 out. So again, I'm pleased again to be joined today by Katherine Marshall. Katherine is a employment

00:01:51.360 and human rights lawyer. She founded her own law firm called Marshall Law. What a great name 0.51

00:01:55.680 for a law firm. She advocates for victims of wrongful termination, discrimination and harassment. So

00:02:00.640 Katherine, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for having me.

00:02:04.480 Okay, so walk us through this story. You are representing Travis. Tell us about what his claims are and what's

00:02:12.000 happened. Yeah, I mean, it's a really explosive case. Look, Travis has been dealing with the CBC

00:02:20.000 for a long time. I mean, he's been an employee for years, but over time, he experienced a lot of

00:02:26.480 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

00:02:41.600 senior correspondents in Ottawa. I think you can guess maybe who I'm talking about and they'll be

00:02:47.360 more shared about that a bit later. And, you know, finally, the CBC tried to break him, but he decided he

00:02:54.400 wasn't going to be muzzled. They wanted him to sign an NDA and he refused and he has resigned and

00:03:02.880 he is going to use his voice. And there will be more. There will be a lot more to come on this case.

00:03:09.280 But I think the CBC is probably shaking in their boots about what he's going to be exposing.

00:03:16.880 Well, it seems like they have something to hide here. I wanted to zero in on something you said that

00:03:21.280 he tried to have conservative voices on his show and that CBC objected to that. I'm sorry,

00:03:27.600 like conservatives are like half the country. Right. And so this idea that they don't want to

00:03:31.360 have conservative voices. Can you elaborate on that? Like, do you mean partisan conservatives or

00:03:35.360 do you mean people who hold small C conservative traditional values in this, in this country?

00:03:40.080 I mean, small C conservatives, conservative politicians. I mean, Travis is a journalist,

00:03:44.080 right? Like he, he had his show and he wanted to debate issues and actually debate them from all

00:03:50.560 angles, not just, you know, have four people who are all debating it from the liberal point of view.

00:03:56.560 And when he would try and bring on like small C conservative voices or conservative politicians

00:04:03.280 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 him.

00:04:17.600 Right. Because again, he's thinking, well, this is my job as a journalist is to actually explore issues

00:04:26.320 and get down to the truth. So I think the CBC looked at him as a token. I think they looked at his

00:04:36.800 skin color and they thought he was going to expose a certain worldview, a liberal worldview. And when they

00:04:43.840 didn't, or when he didn't, they freaked out and they tried to muzzle him.

00:04:49.840 Honestly, it sounds, it sounds a little bit like what happened to Jamil Javani at Bell. I think that

00:04:54.240 he sort of has a similar story to tell. You know, I've heard some rumors, Catherine, that CBC power and

00:05:00.000 politics host David Cochran specifically was upset because conservative MPs basically refused to go on

00:05:07.440 his show because he was so incredibly unfair to them. He wouldn't give them the proper time to explain

00:05:12.480 their perspectives. He would talk over them. We've, we've, 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. We're all

00:05:21.520 refusing to go on your show. Um, and yet, you know, they were still willing to go on other CBC shows,

00:05:27.760 including, um, Travis's show and that this might've kind of been part of what was happening behind the scenes.

00:05:33.440 Is there any, uh, validity to that? And can you comment on that? Well, with respect to those

00:05:40.000 specific examples, I will tell you, um, Candace, and I haven't told anyone that this yet, there are

00:05:46.400 many, many specific examples we will be sharing later. Um, we have names, we have receipts, we have emails.

00:05:56.400 Um, but to your point, uh, yes, there was a lot of resentment, I think, towards Travis from certain

00:06:06.480 correspondents in Ottawa about the fact that, you know, conservatives actually felt comfortable going

00:06:13.360 on Travis's show because he wasn't completely biased. Interesting. I want to just read a particular,

00:06:20.480 um, part that came out of Brian Lilly. Brian Lilly's been doing some great reporting on this and he wrote

00:06:25.600 this in the Toronto Sun. I guess this is taken from Travis's letter. And so I'm quoting from

00:06:31.200 Travis's letter yesterday. He says, I was repeatedly denied access to key newsmakers, internal booking

00:06:36.880 and editorial protocols were weaponized to create structural barriers for some while empowering

00:06:42.480 others, particularly a small circle of senior Ottawa based journalists. We can all imagine who that

00:06:47.120 is, Catherine. Um, when I questioned these imbalances, I was met with silence, resistance,

00:06:51.120 and eventually retaliation. I was fighting for balance and accused of being on a crusade. So,

00:06:57.200 you know, Catherine, I don't have a lot of respect for the state broadcaster. I think incredibly lowly

00:07:02.800 of them. And yet, if I were to imagine what the culture is like over there, and I were to say,

00:07:07.280 you know, I wonder what the, the, the conversations happen behind closed doors. What do they really

00:07:11.840 think of conservatives and conservative ideas? And, and, and the way that, that Travis is describing

00:07:16.640 this being met by just childish behavior, bullying, it seems just like a total, not just like a

00:07:23.360 resistance to intellectual diversity, but hostility towards even someone having the, the goal to even

00:07:29.840 say, Hey, we should probably have a little bit of balance on our network. We should probably try

00:07:33.600 to represent the other half of the country. Um, this, this is like, this could be parody. And yet,

00:07:39.040 apparently this is what is happening. Um, what, what, uh, can you comment on that?

00:07:43.520 Yeah. I mean, like, I, um, like, I think like hostility is definitely the right word to use. 0.99

00:07:52.480 I mean, it was totally hostile. It was completely inappropriate. The mothership, uh, seems to be

00:08:00.080 run by a gang of a very close knit gang of Ottawa based correspondents. And I think you can guess who

00:08:07.040 those people are, um, who are pretty much micromanaging everything. I have seen Candace, 1.00

00:08:13.760 the emails, I have seen what was going on behind the scenes and it was shocking. Now I do a lot of

00:08:21.920 cases involving workplace bullying and harassment and toxicity. And I have to say from what I've seen

00:08:27.360 at CBC, it's one of the most toxic workplaces I witnessed. Um, you know, Travis was simply trying

00:08:34.880 to do his job and he was being treated like the enemy. He was being treated like he was doing

00:08:40.480 something wrong, something evil. And, um, they really did try and break him. And again, I, as to

00:08:51.200 my earlier point, I think there was resentment that he was able to book certain guests because they did

00:08:57.280 feel comfortable coming on his show because they knew they were going to get a fair shake. They knew they

00:09:01.520 weren't going to be like thrown the liberal talking points and sandbagged. So there was resentment that

00:09:09.040 he could get certain guests. And then though that would be, um, uh, you know, barred by certain

00:09:16.000 individuals and, you know, caused Travis to be very stressed out that he had to go take a leave.

00:09:24.000 And Candace, they tried to make him sign an NDA when he posted that tweet about Catherine Tate.

00:09:32.480 Right. So just, just to provide some more background on that, um, the story that came

00:09:37.600 out was that, you know, in, in the wake of CBC layoffs and people losing their job in newsrooms

00:09:43.040 across the country, uh, we learned that the executives over at the CBC were taking multi

00:09:47.760 million dollar bonuses and it was probably the biggest story in the country, at least on social

00:09:52.240 media. And so Travis, you know, being a journalist just said, you know, I issue an invitation to the

00:09:57.920 president of the CBC to come on the show and just talk about it and explain what's happened,

00:10:01.120 which to me seemed pretty reasonable, seemed pretty good journalism. I admit, I thought,

00:10:04.800 Hey, Hey, he's got, he's got courage to invite his boss onto a show like that. But in, in some

00:10:08.880 ways he was giving her a lifeline. He was saying, Hey, I'll give you a platform to, to just explain

00:10:13.680 to the people in the country what's happening. And it seemed like to me that they took that as,

00:10:19.760 you know, some kind of a hostile act. Oh yes. That was, they treated that like it was a cardinal sin,

00:10:26.640 but of course for them, it was the excuse they needed to really strip him from the air because

00:10:33.600 they were already very frustrated with Travis. They, because he wasn't being their little puppet

00:10:39.760 spokesperson. He was actually trying to engage in real journalism and real diversity of thought.

00:10:45.920 So they use that as the, that was a catalyst for them stripping him off the air. And then they offered

00:10:52.000 him, this was the offer. They said, you can come back to work in a demoted role. So no longer host of your

00:11:01.520 own show, um, with a pay cut, but you have to sign a gag order. And they presented him with this crazy

00:11:09.520 document. And of course he refused to sign it. It was Stalin ask. It's like in what work I've never

00:11:17.600 seen this in a workplace. Like, and I've dealt with hundreds of workplaces in this country, big,

00:11:22.240 giant corporations. I've never seen a workplace present their own employee with a gag order.

00:11:28.720 It's, it is Stalin ask. And, you know, we criticize the CBC for their ideological lens that they put

00:11:34.560 into every news story, but it also just seems like it's run by pretty terrible people. So the latest

00:11:39.200 update on this story is that according to the CBC, Dan Rush is still employed there. So they are

00:11:45.840 rejecting his resignation letter. Uh, so this is again, Brian Lilly reporting in the Toronto sun,

00:11:50.800 Dan Rush still employed CBC says, despite going public with his resignation. Uh, this seems like,

00:11:57.360 again, Catherine, some kind of, uh, attempt to control him and to gag him. Uh, what, what do you 0.99

00:12:04.160 make of this? It's like an abusive relationship. It's like when you try and leave your abuser and

00:12:10.080 they don't let you, I honestly look at this employment relationship as being akin to abuse. They, it's,

00:12:18.000 to me, it's completely insane that they rejected his resignation. He couldn't have been more

00:12:27.360 forthright and more clear about his, his resignation and that he was leaving and the reasons why he

00:12:34.400 sent a letter in, he emailed his coworkers and CBC wrote to me and after that and said,

00:12:42.640 we consider him to still be an employee. We don't accept his resignation. If he wants to resign,

00:12:48.800 he has to sign a whole bunch of forms. And I just said to them,

00:12:53.040 I really think you guys need to spend some time looking at your policies and your internal culture,

00:12:59.840 because this is crazy. So yes, CBC has not accepted his resignation. They are out there

00:13:05.760 telling the media that he's still an employee. I would like to be very clear today on your show,

00:13:10.400 Candace. Travis is not an employee of CBC anymore. He resigned involuntarily, but he resigned.

00:13:17.680 Well, good for him for, for doing that. And again, it just seems like the CBC is trying to manipulate

00:13:23.760 him in some way by saying that, you know, he's still an employee, so he probably still has to

00:13:27.360 abide by CBC rules and standards. I'm curious in the Toronto Sun piece, it said that he's still

00:13:33.920 considering his various legal options, but I think because he's part of the CBC union, he is limited in

00:13:41.600 terms of like whether or not he can sue the CBC and, and what that looks like. You mentioned,

00:13:46.560 you were quoted saying that you're considering a human rights commission filing. So can you walk

00:13:51.520 us through what the next steps will be for Travis and what kind of legal avenues he might have here?

00:13:56.720 Yeah, definitely. I mean, I think you put, you, you hit the nail on the head. Like really they,

00:14:00.800 the CBC wants to maintain control over him. That's really the true reason why they're not accepting his

00:14:05.840 resignation. They want to feel like they still have control over him and can lord the collective bargaining

00:14:11.600 agreement over him and their internal policies. Um, they don't like that he took control of the

00:14:17.200 situation. Um, but, uh, yes, I want to talk about his union for a second because they are so useless. 0.98

00:14:24.400 Um, there were, I, I really wondered, uh, was the union representing Travis or were they representing

00:14:32.080 CBC from what I saw? It looked like they were representing CBC. They were certainly in cahoots

00:14:39.600 with the CBC. They weren't doing anything for him. They knew all of the things that were happening.

00:14:45.520 They didn't do anything. No grievance was filed. No invest. Travis wrote a long complaint

00:14:52.800 against certain individuals for bullying, harassment, retaliation was not investigated.

00:14:58.000 That's a breach of his employment and human rights. So because he's in the union, he cannot

00:15:04.960 sue the CBC civilly. However, he can sue them in human rights court. Um, no collective bargaining

00:15:11.680 agreement or union can take away your, your, your right to enforce your own human rights. So he can

00:15:18.480 sue in the Canadian human rights commission, um, for breaches of his human rights. I think the fact that

00:15:27.040 he was targeted, um, because of his, uh, will desire to, to have a diversity of opinions,

00:15:34.400 he was tokenized because of the color of his skin, and then he was retaliated against and mistreated

00:15:40.800 and intimidated while he was on a leave because he was so stressed from the, the way they're treating

00:15:47.760 him. Those are all human rights violations. So CBC will have to answer to us in court.

00:15:53.840 Well, we will look forward to, uh, following along with this story, Catherine, you know,

00:15:58.640 it's interesting that you say that the union hasn't been helpful because this is kind of what

00:16:02.160 a union is for is to defend their employees. And it, it brings me back. Uh, someone pointed this out

00:16:06.720 to me on X the other day, which was that when the entire debacle with Jiong Kameshi happened,

00:16:12.560 right, Jiong Kameshi was found to have just completely been harassing women in his workplace.

00:16:18.880 And it seemed like the CBC knew about it at the time, right? He was a very famous

00:16:23.200 host at the time. He was the golden boy of the CBC. His fame went beyond Canada and beyond the CBC.

00:16:29.280 And even though the organization knew that these kinds of stories were happening,

00:16:34.800 that he was abusing people, that, that, that women were afraid of him and, and that things,

00:16:38.880 bad things were happening. Um, they just kind of brushed it all aside. There's so many examples

00:16:44.080 of this, Catherine, uh, it reminds me too, of Tara Henley back in 2022. So three years ago,

00:16:49.840 she came out with an absolute bombshell. She wrote in the national post, why I quit the CBC. She said

00:16:55.600 to work at the CBC in the current current climate is to embrace cognitive dissident dissidents and

00:17:00.720 abandoned journalistic integrity. A lot of the complaints that she writes are kind of similar.

00:17:05.760 And yet with no disrespect to Tara Henley, um, she was sort of a behind the scenes producer.

00:17:10.880 She would occasionally have an on air role. Um, she wasn't in a position like Travis,

00:17:15.920 where she had her own show. So I, you know, I think that we all know that this behavior exists

00:17:21.360 in the CBC has going back decades now. And I think that Travis is sort of the most high profile,

00:17:27.600 biggest name, um, to come out and say this thing. I hope it causes a reckoning. I hope that enough

00:17:33.440 Canadians, a tipping point of Canadians say, you know, that whole Pierre Polyev line of defunding the CBC,

00:17:39.280 that wasn't just sort of like a partisan shtick. There is something severely wrong and rotten at

00:17:44.720 the state broadcaster beyond just the bias against conservatives. It is a culture, um, where, where

00:17:51.440 it just, I don't even know how to describe it, but it just seems so toxic and so critical.

00:17:56.560 I almost like it to me, there's like a cult, there's a sort of a cult ish, um, environment.

00:18:03.440 The fact that again, they're not even allowing the, that they think that they have to approve

00:18:10.560 his resignation tells you everything you need to know about how they believe they control and own

00:18:16.240 the journalists who work there. And I talked to a lot of journalists. I actually represent a lot of

00:18:20.720 journalists. I've spoken to a lot of people at CBC, as you can probably imagine, Candace, since the

00:18:25.600 story broke, my inbox has been inundated. I have lots of emails from former CBC employees

00:18:32.880 telling me very similar stories to Travis. Wow. This, you know, Travis is a whistleblower and

00:18:41.120 you're absolutely right. Candace, he's not doing this for himself. He truly wants there to be

00:18:47.120 change at CBC. He, he wants there to be some exposure and it's not easy being the pointy end of

00:18:54.480 the spear and like putting yourself out there. And we're fully expecting CBC to try and trash

00:19:00.160 his reputation and to come out with spin against him. We're waiting for it. Um, so it's a hard thing

00:19:05.520 to do and it takes a lot of bravery, but he's doing it because he wants there to be actual change.

00:19:11.440 Um, he doesn't want to just, you know, again, like they wanted him to sign a gag order. I kind of

00:19:16.640 wonder, and I'll find that this out and the legal proceeding, how many people have they had signed this

00:19:21.520 gag order over the years? It's such a good question. And, um, you know, the journalism side

00:19:29.040 of me, uh, I want to, I want to talk to you maybe off air about some of those emails. Maybe we can,

00:19:33.280 we can break some more news if any of those people are willing to, uh, come on the Candace Malcolm

00:19:37.360 show or talk to Juno news. But again, this just needs to be exposed because those of us kind of

00:19:41.840 like it with, you know, in and around the media world and media circles, particularly in Toronto and

00:19:47.040 Ottawa, everyone knows this have happened and it's time for the rest of the country to learn

00:19:51.600 as well. And to realize again, just how corrupted, uh, our state broadcaster has become and how wrong

00:19:57.360 it is that every time there's an election, the liberal parties are out of the liberal parties

00:20:01.520 out there pledging more money and bribing them more with our tax dollars, um, which makes them

00:20:06.480 more radicalized against conservatives and less likely to give conservatives a fair shake. So it's,

00:20:10.960 it's definitely this toxic cycle, um, is happening in our country. And I applaud you for taking

00:20:15.680 on this case and for exposing us. So, um, any, any, any final thoughts on, uh, on this case, Catherine?

00:20:21.600 Well, honestly, it's going to be a massive case. I mean, it's so rare that we get a case where we

00:20:26.800 have someone like Travis, who's willing to speak out and to share like what really goes on behind

00:20:32.720 the scenes at our, our public broadcaster. So, um, I think Brian Lilly put it best. Like,

00:20:40.080 I mean, they're, they think they're hotel California and that you can never leave, but you know,

00:20:44.480 Travis escaped, he broke free and they didn't get to silence him. They didn't gag him. They didn't

00:20:50.320 break him. And I think he's their worst nightmare right now. And they should be concerned about

00:20:56.560 what's to come. Wow. Well, we can't wait to hear more from this case and to follow it. Uh, Catherine

00:21:01.280 Marshall, thank you so much for joining the shows. Catherine Marshall, founder of Marshall Law Firm,

00:21:06.800 and she is representing Travis Danraj in this bombshell, um, case where he was publicly ousted

00:21:13.440 from the publicly pushed out of the CBC. So Catherine, thank you so much. Thank you for

00:21:18.320 having me. All right, folks. It's all the time we have for today. We'll be back again tomorrow

00:21:21.760 with all the news of Candace Malcolm. This is Candace Malcolm show. Thank you and God bless.

The Candice Malcolm Show - July 09, 2025

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

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript