On Labour Day news broke that Peter Mansbridge, CBC’s anchor and chief correspondent forever, will be retiring.
He’ll anchor the 150th anniversary Canada Day celebrations and he’s done. The news has been leading my Facebook news feed for half a day now.
It’s about bloody time.
The man’s journalism career started in Churchill, Man. Now one of the lead stories is the closure of that sub-arctic port.
CBC noted, “He has covered 14 federal elections, hosted eight Olympic ceremonies and conducted an estimated 15,000 interviews, sitting opposite countless Canadian and global leaders, along with numerous personalities from the worlds of politics, sports and entertainment.”
He took over The Nationalon May 2, 1988. If he retires July 1, 2017, that's more than 29 years in the big chair. That’s a tremendous accomplishment for one man. Kudos to him. It’s a horrible statement for the rest of the journalism business, and CBC in particular.
One of the big issues south of the 49th is the possibility a woman can finally, finally break the “glass ceiling.” Merriam-Webster defines that as “an unfair system or set of attitudes that prevents some people (such as women or people of a certain race) from getting the most powerful jobs.”
Peter Mansbridge was that glass ceiling, personified, of Canadian journalism.
At least one and more likely two generations of journalists have grown up in Canada without ever having the opportunity to take the big chair at CBC, full time. Oh sure, some would fill in when Mansbridge took a holiday or a day off. Wendy Mesley, his one-time wife, has done that for years (awkward!).
CBC relied on Mansbridge so much that when power outages hit southern Ontario, they pulled him from his holidays, scruffy beard and all, to put him on air lest the populace feel insecure about a fresher-faced anchor with some other DNA.
But no one, woman, man, minority, majority, white, brown, black or purple, has had a shot at the permanent anchor spot for nearly three decades. That, I would say, is the definition of a glass ceiling. There was no point in the best and the brightest ever aspiring to the top job, because it was never going to happen.
Mansbridge’s tenure has predated the World Wide Web! He was in the anchor position when the Berlin Wall fell down. The Oka crisis? Mansbridge, too.
What would we say about other organizations if the pinnacle of their organization was so calcified? Did you know the military has a policy where most officers serve in a post for only three years, then they move on? We appoint a new chief of defence staff every three years. It gives younger officers a chance to work themselves up to the top job, because no matter what, that job will eventually become available.
During Mansbridge’s tenure, Canada has had the following chiefs of defence staff: Gen. P.D. Manson, Gen. A.J.G.D. de Chastelain, Adm. J.R. Anderson, Gen. A.J.G.D. de Chastelain (second term, an extremely rare occurrence), Gen. J.E.J. Boyle, VAdm. L.E. Murray, Gen. J.M.G. Baril, Gen. R.R. Henault, Gen. R.J. Hillier, Gen. W. J. Natynczyk and, currently, Gen. J. Vance.
Gen. Rick Hillier is widely regarded as the finest general we’ve had in generations. He put a pride back in the military that we had not seen in a long time. But back in 1988, he was still in the middle of the officer ranks. Imagine if Gen. Manson or Gen. de Chastelain had held the CDS post all this time? What if Hillier had never even had a chance at the top job?
So it has been with CBC. No matter who you were, no matter how good you were or how hard you worked, you never had a chance at taking Mansbridge’s post until he decided to give it up. Accept that or move on to somewhere else.
For the network that makes such a big deal about everyone else’s failure to meet today’s politically correct social agendas, perhaps CBC should enact this policy: No more 29-year-postings, for anyone.
Brian Zinchuk is editor of Pipeline News. He can be reached at brian.zinchuk@sasktel.net.
