Broadcaster Charles Adler wants to meet with Manitoba chiefs after calls to pull Senate appointment

Broadcaster Charles Adler says he’s asked for a face-to-face meeting with the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs and its grand chief after the assembly called for Adler’s recent Senate appointment to be rescinded over what it called “grossly offensive” comments he made about Indigenous communities 25 years ago.

“I am accountable for what I say and do,” Adler said in a brief emailed statement on Tuesday, adding that he looks forward to hearing from the advocacy group, which represents all 63 First Nations in Manitoba.

Adler, who has spent decades in broadcasting — including a lengthy period as the host of a flagship talk radio show on Winnipeg’s CJOB, a Corus Entertainment property — was announced on Saturday as one of two new appointments to the Senate, alongside Saskatchewan health-care executive Tracy Muggli.

Days later, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs issued a statement calling on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Gov. Gen. Mary Simon — who makes Senate appointments on the advice of the prime minister — to rescind Adler’s appointment to Canada’s upper legislative chamber over comments he made on air in 1999 that led the assembly to file a formal complaint with the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council. 

Adler’s comments included references to Indigenous leaders as “uncivilized boneheads” and “intellectually moribund,” as well as other statements the assembly called “vulgar and racist commentary.” 

The Canadian Broadcast Standards Council dismissed the complaint, saying Adler made “fair political commentary,” noting in a 2000 decision that “those who occupy positions of power on the reserves may legitimately be described, on account of the decisions which they make, as ‘boneheads’ or ‘intellectually moribund’ by opinion-holders in the media.”

The council said if Adler had taken the position that Indigenous people who aren’t in leadership positions are intellectually moribund, “the attitude of this Council would likely have been different.”

WATCH | Charles Adler addresses criticism of Senate appointment:

However, the Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs said this week that Adler’s comments remain hurtful.

“It’s a great insult to First Nations people, and a blatant disregard for the principle of respect of equality and reconciliation that Canada claims to uphold,” Grand Chief Cathy Merrick told CBC News after Adler’s appointment.

She disputed the broadcast standards council’s characterization of Adler’s comments as limited to political leaders, saying they referred to First Nations people broadly, specifically in his discussion about unemployment.

In the standards council’s decision, Adler is quoted as saying “there is an appropriate way that most of members of mainstream society and many members of Aboriginal society have found to deal with anger about unemployment. There’s a three-word solution: get a job.”

Liberal MP criticizes appointment

Before AMC issued its statement, the lone Manitoba member of Justin Trudeau’s cabinet also criticized Adler’s Senate appointment.

“There are many eminently qualified Manitobans who are better suited to represent our province than Charles Adler,” said Saint Boniface-Saint Vital Liberal MP Dan Vandal, whose cabinet responsibilities include Northern Affairs, Prairies Economic Development Canada and the Canadian Northern Economic Development Agency.

WATCH | Adler previously said Senate should be abolished:

New Senator Charles Adler previously said Senate should be abolished

Former broadcaster Charles Adler has referred to the Senate as ‘a sewer that needs to be terminated.’ He’s now Canada’s newest senator. P&P hears from Adler on how this appointment came to be.

Vandal served as a city councillor and also ran for mayor of Winnipeg when Adler worked as a talk radio host in the Manitoba capital.

The MP’s office said he would not comment further on the Senate appointment.

Adler, who was born in Hungary and whose family came to Canada as refugees in 1957, has been a broadcaster and writer for decades, according to his biography on a federal website. The Emmy Award winner has been a prominent political commentator throughout his career as a journalist, his bio says.

He was appointed to serve alongside five other Manitoba senators: one Conservative, one member of the centrist Canadian Senators Group and three unaffiliated senators.

New Senate appointment process

In 2016, Trudeau instituted a new appointment process that relies on an independent advisory board, under which 84 senators have been appointed. The vast majority of senators sit in one of several independent groupings in the chamber. A number of senators form a Conservative caucus in the Senate.

The Liberals said the intent of revamping the appointment process was to create a more independent, less partisan and more diverse Senate.

Many independent senators say they do not have ties to the governing party and evaluate legislation based on their own judgment, often pointing to numerous amendments made to government legislation in recent years.

Conservatives have consistently argued since 2016 that the process results in Liberal-friendly appointments. A number of recent appointees to the Senate indeed have strong ties to the party.

The chamber recently debated a suite of new rules that give more power to the independent groupings in the Senate. Those changes have been met with sharp criticism from the Conservatives.

While fellow recent senate appointee Muggli previously ran as a candidate for the Liberals in 2015 and 2019 and has been a longtime donor to the party, according to publicly available contribution data, Adler has not run as a Liberal candidate, nor does his name appear in the federal contribution database. 

He was long considered a conservative commentator, but in recent years he’s discussed moving away from supporting conservative parties because of shifts in policy and approach in the last decade or so.