Ahmar Khan, the former @CBCManitoba journalist reprimanded for tweeting criticism regarding Don Cherry's racist rant, and terminated after contacting @CANADALAND, has won his arbitration dispute.

The details are, in a word, explosive.

Full disclosure: Ahmar came to me, personally, for advice on the matter of what he felt might lead to constructive dismissal. I'm noted in the judgment, several times in the document, via our private conversations.

Full details here:
https://www.canlii.org/en/ca/cala/doc/2021/2021canlii761/2021canlii761.html

Some items of note that will likely be seized on, are the details of Ahmar's private WhatsApp conversations with friends and colleagues on the laptop. While concerning, it's also important to flag that @AustinGrabish was found to have cropped them so as to alter their context:

Also unclear why the matter was raised in the arbitration to begin with; Khan's termination was not based on the contents of those private chats, but on the potential reputational damage to CBC Khan could have inflicted by going to outside media outlets (rather than management)

It should also be noted that @AhmarSKhan and @AustinGrabish are members of the same union.

Some editorializing: the details of this paragraph are not sui generis. Losing one's position in the Canadian media industry, where job security is next to non-existent, can be traumatic. But this kind of drumming-out is absolutely devastating to the health of POC journalists

I have personally spoken to many Black and POC journalists who've burned out of the industry (as opposed to being forced out of a job, as Khan was), and the stories of depression, anxiety, developing harmful addictions, and suicidal ideation are too numerous to count.

It also shouldn't escape notice that, as Khan was going through the process of bringing this grievance to arbitration, CBC's president and CEO, Catherine Tait, put out this press release on diversity and inclusion:

https://www.cbc.ca/mediacentre/press-release/anti-racism-diversity-and-inclusion-at-cbc-radio-canada

To date, even after the 2020 protest movement for Black lives, CBC has not produced a demographic report on its newsrooms.