Music

Ex-Q employee says Ghomeshi "fondled and abused" her for years while CBC did nothing

by Mark Teo

The Q employee that alleged that Jian Ghomeshi threatened to “hate fuck” her has come forward, alleging that while she was being harassed by the disgraced broadcaster, the CBC remained silent, unwilling to take action. Initially listed in the Toronto Star’s groundbreaking story as an anonymous source living in the U.S., Kathryn Borel—now an L.A.-based writer an editor for The Believer—has come forward, and in a story penned for The Guardian, she offers insight into how the CBC handled (or more aptly, didn’t handle) her complaints of sexual harassment in the workplace.

In her Guardian story, Borel details the horrible abuse she allegedly faced at the hands of Ghomeshi.

After that, there were the uninvited back massages at my desk to which it was clear I couldn’t say no, during which my host’s hands would slide down just a little too close to the tops of my breasts. A year into my time on the job, he grabbed my rear end and claimed he couldn’t control himself because of my skirt. Occasionally my host would stand in the doorway of his office when no one was around and slowly undo his shirt by two or three buttons while staring at me, grinning. He once grabbed my waist from behind – in front of our fellow colleague, at the office – and proceeded to repeatedly thrust his crotch into my backside. There was emotional abuse, too: gaslighting and psychological games that undermined my intelligence, security and sense of self.

But when she tried to report Ghomeshi—not to bring him down, she says, but only to stop the abuse—she encountered plenty of barriers. For one, she encountered the emerging star system at the CBC: As a then-emerging writer and an original Q producer, she feared for her career. She felt she would be replaceable, afraid that her role on the CBC’s biggest show was the “biggest break [she] ever had.”

At her account’s most heartbreaking, Borel questioned if she—not Ghomeshi—was to blame for his alleged abhorrent behaviour. At her peak, that anxiety led to 25 pounds in weight gain, binge-drinking, and days where she missed work to lie in bed.

It’s awful to read. Borel says she “cried in my boss’s office already, on more than one occasion,” but Q executive producer Arif Noorani told her that Ghomeshi wouldn’t change, and that she had to “figure out” how to cope with his actions. Eventually, she took up her issue with union representative Tomthy Nessam, who, despite the fact that he didn’t take notes in their meeitngs, claimed Borel’s complaints were passed “verbatim” to the CBC. (Note: She elected not to file a formal complaint against Ghomeshi, for fear of looking like a “problem employee.”)

When the story broke, though, both her union and the CBC issued statements that they hadn’t heard any complaints about Ghomeshi. So, what happened to Borel’s case? It appears that they were entangled in a culture of concealment, one which permitted celebrity to run rampant. The union claimed that Nessam was an “elected representative,” not a staff member—which is a technicality, at best, and a move likely meant to disassociate themselves with the Ghomeshi case. Noorani, meanwhile, is still at the CBC, but now works for another show.

The CBC, who are currently investigating the Ghomeshi incident, did not contact Borel. In fact, she noted, the Fifth Estate special which was meant to be a probe of the Ghomeshi scandal, didn’t speak to two producers who left in 2010 over his harassment.

It’s undeniable that the CBC—especially after the loss of Hockey Night in Canada—needed its stars. But the flipside of the emerging celebrity culture led to a toxic work environment, in which abuse of authority was permitted. Borel put it best in the quote below.

As for Borel, she also explained why she initially emerged as an anonymous source. She told her story to Jesse Brown, the man who initially reported the story, but was afraid of the toxic backlash that victims often face on social media.

But I wasn’t keen to be called a slut and a liar and a fabulist, and I was nervous that someone would identify me publicly and, in doing so, would damage the new career and life I’d worked so hard to build.

Thus far, thankfully, it appears that Borel’s account has been met with support.