4 Years A CBC Slave

A slave is "someone who is legally owned by another person and is forced to work for that person without pay… a person who is strongly influenced and controlled by something." (Merriam Webster)

In the movie 12 Years A Slave,  Solomon Northrup, a free black man and a member of an abused minority, is tricked by some ruthless people and sold into slavery. For the next 12 years Northrup works for no pay, gets beaten physically and psychologically and finally wins back his freedom.

By any definition, I am a slave for the CBC.

Every week for the past four years I have put in part-time or full-time work for the CBC.

The CBC influence and control my time.

The CBC does not pay me, in fact they have threatened me on several occasions. The process is an abuse of
a person with a disability.

CBC Policy 2.2.20: Non-Discrimination and the Duty to Accommodate

"The Corporation accepts responsibility to ensure that its policies, practices, work arrangements and facilities do not have unlawful discriminatory effects on individuals or groups protected under the Human Rights Act… (namely) persons with disabilities." CBC

However, I will not be anyone's slave any longer. If the CBC wants me to work for them, then they will have to pay me.

I do not want to work for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation but I do. The CBC does not pay me but they tell me what to do. The CBC makes it hard for me to work at any other job that would give me income. I am a slave for the CBC.

Of course all the good people in the CBC don't want to dirty their hands beating up cripples.  They use lawyers for that. The CBC has hired a bulldog lawyer to fight my right to work as a journalist on Prince Edward Island.

The Human Rights laws in Canada should protect my right to work as a person with a disability.  By law a person with a disability has to prove that based on the evidence  discrimination in employment has occurred. However, there are lawyers who will gnaw at your leg for a fee and the CBC has hired a real mean one.

Usually Human Rights cases go to mediation since the issues are easier settled that way. The CBC lawyer has refused to mediate because the law says he does not have to be reasonable. The CBC, funded with tax dollars, apparently gets their kicks out of abusing the disabled so why stop now.

I'll give you an example of how abusive this process is.  The CBC lawyer cooked up one-sided minutes of our first conference call with the Chief Justice of PEI but said he would change them if I had suggestions.  After I worked on them for two days, he said,

"I don't have grave reservations about your draft minutes, but I do not feel that I can agree with them either, without a lot more time and effort, which I am not inclined to devote to the exercise."

In other words, his time is worth more than mine. Perhaps that is true since I am a CBC slave.  But I am not going to be their slave anymore. The CBC can pay the meter from now on.

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By Stephen Pate, NJN Network