CBC ombudsman says "public cannot accept" Toronto police chief's version of mayor's 911 call

CBC ombudsman Kirk Lapointe claims that the public cannot accept Police Chief Bill Blair’s account of the 911 calls Mayor Rob Ford made after a This Hour Has 22 Minutes comedian surprised him in his driveway. LaPointe, found that the CBC did not violate its journalistic standards in its reporting on Ford’s calls — though he also says he isn’t sure that its stories, which relied on anonymous sources, were correct.

“On one hand, CBC News is a major media organization with a reputation for high-quality investigative and precision journalism as part of its public mission,” LaPointe wrote in a report released Friday. “On the other hand, the chief of police is a major public figure expected to perform impeccable service.

In this matter only one of them is right. It just isn’t clear whom.” Blair’s Oct. 28 statement on the calls should not be considered the definitive final word, LaPointe argued. Blair’s independence, he wrote, was compromised by Ford’s key role in setting the police budget. Police spokespesman Mark Pugash strongly criticized that assertion.

It is “offensive,” Pugash said, for LaPointe to suggest the police budget had any influence on Blair’s statement. “Chief Blair listened to the calls, the CBC did not. Chief Blair’s account is accurate and truthful, he stands by what he said, and Mr. LaPointe’s suggestion that the ongoing budget process makes the chief ‘not a disinterested party’ is completely wrong,” he said. LaPointe wrote that he could not determine whether the CBC’s stories were accurate without access to the tape of the disputed call. Absent that proof, he wrote, “there remain questions about this episode that may never be answered.”

Ford, who has rejected much of the CBC’s account, has the right to release the tape. He has declined to do so.

Criticism of the CBC’s reporting has centred upon a profane comment its reports claimed Ford had made to a police dispatcher on Oct. 24 when he called to ask why officers had not yet responded to his first call. Citing multiple anonymous sources, the reports claimed Ford had said, “You . . . bitches! Don’t you f---ing know? I’m Rob f---ing Ford, the mayor of this city!”