Manitoba Chiefs ask Trudeau, GG to rescind senate appointment of broadcaster Charles Adler

The Assembly of Manitoba Chiefs wants Canada’s governor general and prime minister to rescind the senate appointment of Charles Adler over what the assembly calls “grossly offensive” comments about Indigenous communities made by the broadcaster 25 years ago.

On Saturday, the prime minister’s office announced the senate appointments of Adler and Saskatchewan health-care executive Tracy Muggli. The governor general makes the appointments on the advice of the prime minister.

Adler 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.

On Monday, the AMC issued a statement calling on Gov. Gen. Mary Simon and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to rescind Adler’s appointment over comments he made on air in 1999 that led the assembly to file a formal complaint with the Canadian Broadcast Standards Council.

Those 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 as “fair political commentary,” noting in a 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 stated in 2000.

The council said had Adler taken the position that ordinary Indigenous people are intellectually moribund, “the attitude of this Council would likely have been different.”

The AMC said in its statement Adler’s comments remain hurtful.

“They also perpetuate harmful stereotypes and misconceptions about First Nations now that this is once again being brought to light because of this appointment,” AMC said in the statement.

“It is obvious that Canada and the prime minister have turned a blind eye to these offensive views when making this appointment to the Senate.”

In the news release, AMC Grand Chief Cathy Merrick compared Adler to former Conservative senator Lynn Beyak, whose comments about Indigenous people were widely criticized.

“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,” Merrick told CBC News in an interview. 

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 CBSC’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.”

Adler told CBC News he has seen the AMC’s statement and won’t comment at the moment.

Liberal cabinet minister criticizes Adler appointment

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

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 — issued a short statement critical of the Adler appointment.

“There are many eminently qualified Manitobans who are better suited to represent our province than Charles Adler,” Vandal said Monday in a statement.

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.

Reached by phone in Winnipeg, Adler said he agrees with Vandal.

“Theoretically, without seeing all these names he must be thinking of, if he says that there are people in Manitoba more qualified than yours truly to be in the Senate, he’s probably right,” Adler said in an interview.

Manitoba’s population is approximately 1.5 million.

Winnipeg South Centre MP Ben Carr declined to comment on Adler’s appointment, while Winnipeg South MP Terry Duguid and Winnipeg North MP Kevin Lamoureux did not immediately respond to queries from CBC News.

Adler will serve alongside five other Manitoba senators. Their ranks include one Conservative, one member of the centrist Canadian Senators Group and three unaffiliated senators.

Sen. Marilou McPhedran, who was appointed just over one year after Trudeau initially assumed office, said in a statement — issued prior to the AMC’s call for Adler’s appointment to be rescinded — that she was initially surprised by Adler’s appointment to the Senate but took time to review his “contributions to political and social discourse in Canada” over the decades.

“On reflection, I think Mr. Adler will bring to the Senate value-based eloquence and the kind of conservative decency that I grew up with in rural Manitoba as a young conservative when the Hon. Duff Roblin was premier,” said McPhedran, who sits as a non-affiliated senator.

“I look forward to welcoming him as another truly independent colleague in the Red Chamber.” 

McPhedran later said she has high regard for the AMC and said the assembly’s concerns merit attention from Trudeau.

Sen. Raymonde Gagné, the speaker of the Senate, declined comment on the basis the speaker does not comment on appointments. Sen. Don Plett said he will reserve his comments for the time being.

Sens. Mary Jane McCallum and Gigi Osler did not immediately respond to requests for comment from CBC News.

Conservative MP responds to Vandal

Vandal’s criticism, which was first reported by Politico, attracted the attention of Calgary-Nose Hill Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner, a former Manitoban.

“A weird, off Liberal message blast for Vandal to send off on the eve of a cabinet shuffle that will undoubtedly be made based on one’s capacity to bootlick,” she tweeted on Monday.

Her party had already criticized Adler’s appointment as a partisan move to advance the prime minister’s agenda, calling Adler “one of Trudeau’s biggest cheerleaders and most vicious anti-Conservative attack dogs in the media” in a statement on Saturday.