The big boss of the French sector of Radio-Canada, Michel Bissonnette, has submitted his resignation to the CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada, Catherine Tait. The official announcement will take place this Tuesday morning, I am told.
According to my information, it would not be an amicable departure. In office since January 2017, Michel Bissonnette, senior vice-president of Radio-Canada in Montreal, has had friction with his superior Catherine Tait, notably in the thorny controversy over the “word starting with an N”, which erupted in summer 2022.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) then blamed Radio-Canada for a column by Simon Jodoin on the radio show 15-18 from 95.1 FM, which cited the title of Pierre Vallières’ essay four times White Negroes of America. Apologies were presented, but Radio-Canada challenged the authority of the CRTC, ruling that the organization interfered in editorial content and threatened the journalistic independence of the public broadcaster.
PHOTO HUGO-SÉBASTIEN AUBERT, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
Former vice-president of Radio-Canada Michel Bissonnette, during a visit to the construction site of the new Maison de Radio-Canada
Michel Bissonnette, who co-founded Zone 3 in 2000, went to the front and defended this point, like several headliners from Radio-Canada’s news department, and he was right. Last June, the Federal Court of Appeal overturned the CRTC’s decision, which allegedly exceeded its powers in the “N-word” issue.
This highly publicized affair, which deeply divided French-speaking and English-speaking people within Radio-Canada, does not in itself explain the departure of Michel Bissonnette, but it gives an idea of the strong tensions which reigned between the Montreal and from Toronto. And this type of conflict leaves its mark.
Michel Bissonnette, who has spent almost his entire career in the private sector, did not respond to an interview request Monday evening. Radio-Canada has not commented either.
This resignation comes at a strange time, when the mandate of the president and CEO of CBC/Radio-Canada, Catherine Tait, was only renewed for 18 months. Mme Tait will leave, in theory, in January 2025.
In the new Maison de Radio-Canada, Michel Bissonnette did not have a closed office, even though he managed all the employees there. He sat in a small adjacent meeting room when he had to resolve matters requiring discretion and confidentiality.