Global Ontario and the National Post went full secret agent this week, as they discovered the CBC partaking in a dirty habit that will stain the corporation’s clean living and politically correct image.
With more than a little obvious glee, it seems that Global and the Post exposed not one but two indoor smoking lounges at the CBC headquarters in Toronto, luxurious dens of tobacco indulgence, featuring cushy couches, numerous ashtrays and ventilation. Both rooms are designed to keep the Mother Corps addicted smokers toasty warm, all while the rest of the common folk of Ontario are forced to huddle together in outdoor pens deep into an Ontario winter.
The CBC and other federal institutions are using a loop hole in federal legislation which apparently supersedes provincial legislation and allows smokers to light up in ventilated rooms on federal property.
It’s sure to be a controversial arrangement considering the crack down on smoking in Ontario, where bars, restaurants, workplaces and such have all been forced to ban smoking on their premises.
The highlight of the story though has to be the 60 minutes like tone of the investigation complete with what we can only call a “butt cam”, hidden camera video showing CBC staffers living a life of Roman luxury as they provide for their tobacco habit, featuring grainy visual evidence of CBC staffers lighting up, inhaling and exhaling all in the comfort of a well ventilated and legal bunker.
Could this be a declaration of war on the CBC by Global? We’re quite sure as we write this that a crack commando squad of CBC investigators is working out a black ops mission on Global National’s Kevin Newman.
The Rex Murphy brigade has probably gone dark, ready to strike upon command from Commander Mansbridge. An elite unit of the CBC, they are not a group you would want to cross, Global News should be afraid, they should be very afraid.
The CBC has a dirty secret, employee smoking rooms
SEAN O'SHEA AND KELLY PATRICK
Global News and National Post
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
TORONTO - Despite Ontario's strict prohibition on smoking in the workplace, employees at the CBC's downtown Toronto headquarters are legally lighting up inside two smoking lounges outfitted with plush sofas and ashtrays, a Global News investigation has found.
Hidden cameras captured smokers puffing away and ashtrays filled with cigarette butts inside the public broadcaster's Toronto building, and the CBC says its workers can smoke in similar designated rooms at its locations in Montreal, Moncton, St. John's, Nfld., and Saint John, N.B.
Watch the Global National video
The CBC's smoking lounges are perfectly legal because of a loophole in federal law. The Non- Smokers' Health Act (NSHA), which came into effect in 1989, allows designated smoking areas in federally regulated workplaces.
That means that even in provinces like Ontario -- where such smoking rooms are banned -- airports, television broadcasters, ports and other employers that fall under Ottawa's jurisdiction can maintain a ventilated space for smoking if they choose.
"I was really both angry and disappointed that the federal government still has not dealt with the issue of allowing smoking rooms in their federal properties," said Ontario Minister of Health Promotion Jim Watson.
Mr. Watson has written letters complaining about the lounges to both federal Health Minister Tony Clement and federal Labour Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn, whose department oversees federal workplaces.
"My next step is to write to the president of the CBC and say notwithstanding the fact that technically they have the right to under the federal law, he should be taking a leadership position and shutting these smoking lounges down," Mr. Watson said.
"Not only is it a double standard, but it's also bad for one's health and one's employees' health. So if you care about the health of your employees, you shouldn't be using a technical loophole in a federal law."
A spokesperson for the CBC told Global News the smoking rooms have existed for years, and it would be too expensive to decommission them now.
Before Ontario's ban on smoking in public places came into effect last May, Mr. Watson asked top brass at Toronto's Pearson International Airport and the Ottawa International Airport to shut down their smoking rooms, even though the airports would have been legally allowed to keep them.
Mr. Watson said both airports complied voluntarily.
Mr. Watson first wrote to Mr. Clement in July asking that the exception for federal workplaces be wiped from the books.
Mr. Clement forwarded the letter to Mr. Blackburn, who in January replied to Mr. Watson.
"While the NSHA has a provision to allow employers to designate smoking rooms and smoking areas, these facilities must meet certain standards for the protection of employees at their place of work," the letter reads.
It goes on to say a survey was recently conducted of 340 federal workplaces with 50 or more employees, which found only 13 locations had designated smoking lounges. Only one didn't meet the standards and it was shut down.
Mr. Watson, who sent Mr. Blackburn another letter on the topic last week, said he is urging Ottawa to ban all smoking lounges in federal workplaces as soon as possible.
"I thought, given the fact the federal government has always been supportive of our efforts to create a smoke-free environment and the fact that they put a lot of money into a television ad campaign right now talking [about] the dangers of second-hand smoke, that they would not allow their employees to be subjected to second-hand smoke," he said.
With more than a little obvious glee, it seems that Global and the Post exposed not one but two indoor smoking lounges at the CBC headquarters in Toronto, luxurious dens of tobacco indulgence, featuring cushy couches, numerous ashtrays and ventilation. Both rooms are designed to keep the Mother Corps addicted smokers toasty warm, all while the rest of the common folk of Ontario are forced to huddle together in outdoor pens deep into an Ontario winter.
The CBC and other federal institutions are using a loop hole in federal legislation which apparently supersedes provincial legislation and allows smokers to light up in ventilated rooms on federal property.
It’s sure to be a controversial arrangement considering the crack down on smoking in Ontario, where bars, restaurants, workplaces and such have all been forced to ban smoking on their premises.
The highlight of the story though has to be the 60 minutes like tone of the investigation complete with what we can only call a “butt cam”, hidden camera video showing CBC staffers living a life of Roman luxury as they provide for their tobacco habit, featuring grainy visual evidence of CBC staffers lighting up, inhaling and exhaling all in the comfort of a well ventilated and legal bunker.
Could this be a declaration of war on the CBC by Global? We’re quite sure as we write this that a crack commando squad of CBC investigators is working out a black ops mission on Global National’s Kevin Newman.
The Rex Murphy brigade has probably gone dark, ready to strike upon command from Commander Mansbridge. An elite unit of the CBC, they are not a group you would want to cross, Global News should be afraid, they should be very afraid.
The CBC has a dirty secret, employee smoking rooms
SEAN O'SHEA AND KELLY PATRICK
Global News and National Post
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
TORONTO - Despite Ontario's strict prohibition on smoking in the workplace, employees at the CBC's downtown Toronto headquarters are legally lighting up inside two smoking lounges outfitted with plush sofas and ashtrays, a Global News investigation has found.
Hidden cameras captured smokers puffing away and ashtrays filled with cigarette butts inside the public broadcaster's Toronto building, and the CBC says its workers can smoke in similar designated rooms at its locations in Montreal, Moncton, St. John's, Nfld., and Saint John, N.B.
Watch the Global National video
The CBC's smoking lounges are perfectly legal because of a loophole in federal law. The Non- Smokers' Health Act (NSHA), which came into effect in 1989, allows designated smoking areas in federally regulated workplaces.
That means that even in provinces like Ontario -- where such smoking rooms are banned -- airports, television broadcasters, ports and other employers that fall under Ottawa's jurisdiction can maintain a ventilated space for smoking if they choose.
"I was really both angry and disappointed that the federal government still has not dealt with the issue of allowing smoking rooms in their federal properties," said Ontario Minister of Health Promotion Jim Watson.
Mr. Watson has written letters complaining about the lounges to both federal Health Minister Tony Clement and federal Labour Minister Jean-Pierre Blackburn, whose department oversees federal workplaces.
"My next step is to write to the president of the CBC and say notwithstanding the fact that technically they have the right to under the federal law, he should be taking a leadership position and shutting these smoking lounges down," Mr. Watson said.
"Not only is it a double standard, but it's also bad for one's health and one's employees' health. So if you care about the health of your employees, you shouldn't be using a technical loophole in a federal law."
A spokesperson for the CBC told Global News the smoking rooms have existed for years, and it would be too expensive to decommission them now.
Before Ontario's ban on smoking in public places came into effect last May, Mr. Watson asked top brass at Toronto's Pearson International Airport and the Ottawa International Airport to shut down their smoking rooms, even though the airports would have been legally allowed to keep them.
Mr. Watson said both airports complied voluntarily.
Mr. Watson first wrote to Mr. Clement in July asking that the exception for federal workplaces be wiped from the books.
Mr. Clement forwarded the letter to Mr. Blackburn, who in January replied to Mr. Watson.
"While the NSHA has a provision to allow employers to designate smoking rooms and smoking areas, these facilities must meet certain standards for the protection of employees at their place of work," the letter reads.
It goes on to say a survey was recently conducted of 340 federal workplaces with 50 or more employees, which found only 13 locations had designated smoking lounges. Only one didn't meet the standards and it was shut down.
Mr. Watson, who sent Mr. Blackburn another letter on the topic last week, said he is urging Ottawa to ban all smoking lounges in federal workplaces as soon as possible.
"I thought, given the fact the federal government has always been supportive of our efforts to create a smoke-free environment and the fact that they put a lot of money into a television ad campaign right now talking [about] the dangers of second-hand smoke, that they would not allow their employees to be subjected to second-hand smoke," he said.
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