CBC Bias, Hypocrisy and Toxic DEI Culture Exposed

Veteran Journalist Travis Dhanraj resigns and calls out CBC for dysfunction at the highest levels

If anyone has ever had any doubts about just how biased and dysfunctional things are at CBC News — you know — the organization that Prime Minister Mark Carney, during the election, recently floated an additional $150 million, to top up the already $1.5 billion it already receives from Canada taxpayers, they might want to hear x-CBC anchor Travis Dhanraj’s story.

He says was "forced to resign" from the organization, after going on record to call out what he described as "dysfunction at the highest levels" at Canada’s state broadcaster. In a scathing resignation letter, Dhanraj, who during his time with CBC, was a senior parliamentary reporter, co-host of CBC Marketplace and most recently the host of Canada Tonight, CBC’s Prime Time news program, accused CBC of providing biased news coverage and outright hypocrisy on its claim of championing ‘inclusion and diversity of opinion,’ when, in fact it does nothing of the sort.

“This is an involuntary resignation. I am stepping down not by choice, but because the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has made it impossible for me to continue my work with integrity.”

Dhanraj, a 20-year veteran of the broadcasting business worked for Bell Media and Global News before he was recruited by CBC to report on Parliament Hill, Marketplace and then eventually was chosen to host Canada Tonight with Travis Dhanraj. His hosting of the show was announced with great enthusiasm by CBC executive Andree Lau back in November of 2023, who said, “Travis’s engaging curiosity and incredible range of experience allows him to translate complex stories into personal terms and help audiences make sense of the news, which will be key as Canada Tonight sharpens its focus on stories that matter at home and make a difference in this country.” The show went on the air in January of 2023, and was finished within the year, perhaps because Dhanraj had a little too much curiosity about the internal runnings of CBC news.

In referring to his resignation Dhanrah wrote, "This was not a voluntary decision. It comes after trying to navigate a workplace culture defined by retaliation, exclusion, and psychological harm. A place where asking hard questions-about tokenism masquerading as diversity, problematic political coverage protocols, and the erosion of editorial independence became a career-ending move."

"When I pushed for honest conversations about systemic issues and editorial imbalance, I was shut out, sidelined and silenced and ultimately, erased. CBC calls itself a champion of inclusion, and public trust. But those ideals are too often deployed as branding tools, not lived principles."

Dhanraj's disappearance from the CBC airwaves back in February sparked speculation about what may have happened, with some suggesting it had something to do with his criticism of perceived editorial imbalance. According to speculation online, Dhanraj’s resignation appears to be over disciplinary action or a leave of absence due to his advocacy for balanced coverage on CBC, including the inclusion of conservative voices in public discourse. Political Pundit Sharan Kaur, reporting on X posted, “Sources at CBC tell me that Travis Dhanraj was pulled off air after requesting former CBC President Catherine Tait come on his show to discuss CBC spending and its future.”

So now the cat is out of the bag with his going public with a letter that also states, “The erosion of trust in the CBC didn't happen overnight.” He blamed it on, "years of dysfunction at the highest levels — where a small group of insiders on air and in management wields out sized influence and prioritizes spin over substance."

No doubt, referring to DEI obsessed organization’s, like the CBC, with their proclivity for ‘workshops’ he doesn’t pull any punches saying, "CBC doesn't need more workshops, it needs accountability. It needs reform. It needs courage."

He urged his former colleagues to speak up, and made it clear that the blame should not be placed at their feet. "I'm not here to protect or comfort," Dhanraj declared. "I'm here to speak truth — even if I have to do it from the outside."

In a separate statement, Dhanraj urged people to take his claims seriously, even if CBC tries to paint him as a "bitter or disgruntled" former employee. "When the time is right, I'll pull the curtain back, I'll share everything," Dhanraj added. "I'll tell you what is really happening inside the walls of your CBC." I am sure many Canadian podcasters leaning right of centre may be knocking on his door to have him tell his story.

Dhanraj is not alone in leaving CBC due to the organization’s proclivity for biased reporting and questionable journalistic practices.

Tara Henely, a journalist with the broadcaster, left the CBC in 2022, when she could no longer bear an atmosphere fraught with one-sided reporting and an obsessive focus on race and ‘woke ideology’. In a substack article she penned she noted that when she began working at the CBC back in 2013, it produced some of the best journalism in the country, but by the time she left, “It embodied some of the worst trends in mainstream media… CBC went from being a trusted source of news to churning out clickbait that reads like a parody of the student press.

”To work at the CBC in that climate was to embrace cognitive dissonance and abandon journalistic integrity and sign on to a radical political agenda that originated on Ivy League campuses in the US… It was to pretend that the “woke” worldview is universal — even if it is far from popular with those you know, and speak to, and interview, and read… It was to accept that race is the most significant thing about a person and some races are more relevant to public conversation than others… And it was to submit to job interviews weren’t about qualifications, but instead demanded parroting orthodoxies demonstrating fealty to dogma.”

Marianne Klowak, a 32 year veteran reporter at CBC, resigned in the midst of the COVID 19 pandemic, citing problems with CBC’s biased reporting on the pandemic which was in lockstep with all the government’s mandates and restrictions. When she challenged that bias and argued that dissenters’ voices should be heard, she was stonewalled and ignored. She noted, “Not only were we cancelling credible voices, we were violating our own principles of balance and fairness. I could see it was quickly becoming not safe for people to tell their stories and have their voices heard.” She recounted her experiences that led to her resignation with Trish Wood, on her Podcast Trish Wood is Critical. Wood herself is another CBC alumni, who is very critical of the direction the organization has gone in.

Marianne Klowak, Trish Wood, and Rodney Palmer

Then there is Rodney Palmer, another veteran journalist who worked as a producer and investigative reporter for CBC radio and television for many years. He gave a very enlightening presentation to the National Citizen’s Inquiry into Canada’s COVID 19 response, exposing the same problems that Klowak experienced during her final years at CBC during the pandemic. He also discussed the problems and bias with the CBC, as well as other Canadian news organizations on another episode of the Trish Wood is Critical Podcast

The rot in CBC has been happening for years, as evidenced by the experiences and observations of these reporters, not to mention that of the millions of Canadians who have tuned it out. One has to wonder when its decaying corpse will finally collapse under its own weight of corruption, woke ideology and hypocrisy — certainly not as long as the Carney Liberal government is there to prop it up.