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Carnegie Director, Ethel Whitty, Blows Hot Air on CBC Radio
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by jr | January 3, 2008 at 09:14 pm
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Carnegie Director Ethel Whitty declined an invitation by CBC's Early
Edition to be interviewed yesterday along with William "Bill" Simpson,
the homeless man barred from Carnegie Board meetings two weeks after
being elected to the Board. But Whitty turned up on the show this
morning. Dag, a Vancouver blogger, commented on the DTES Enquirer, that
Whitty conveniently waited until Bill Simpson and another Board member,
Rachel Davis, were not in the CBC studio to "contradict" her.
When
interviewed this morning, Whitty told a very different story than
Simpson and Davis had told yesterday. Witty claimed that Simpson had
been barred from Carnegie because an employee had laid a WorkSafe
complaint against him.
But Whitty's story doesn't hold up.
There
had been no mention whatsoever of a WorkSafe complaint in the official
letter that Whitty delivered to Simpson notifying him that he was
barred from Carnegie. The reason given in the June 2007 letter on City
of Vancouver stationery was that Simpson operated a website which
“features links” to the Downtown Eastside Enquirer blog.
Carnegie Board member, Rachel Davis, phoned WorkSafe to get the "real story". She spoke to WorkSafe representative, Gordon Harkness. "Mr.Harkness told me that there has been no assessment by WorkSafe of William Simpson whatsoever."
Read the full story at Downtown Eastside Enquirer
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Most RecentMost Recommended Comments (1)
at 23:46 on January 3rd, 2008
Hi,
I appreciate you posting this article here. Below is what I called in to say to the CBC TalkBack line today in response to Ethel Whitty's interview this morning. Something really had to be said, it was so unfair that she refused to come on in order to avoid our ability to counter her spurious claims, and then came on alone the next day! Hopefully the CBC will run my message tomorrow, that would be better.
I listened to Ethel Whitty this morning on your show and I noticed
that she had two different explanations for why William Simpson was
barred. First she said it was a worksafe issue that she can't comment
on, then she said that he simply violated the Carnegie guidelines.
Since William Simpson sleeps in the park because he's homeless and
has no phone, I thought I would call in and rebut both of her
explanations.
You can tell that William Simpson did not simply violate any Carnegie
Guidelines by the fact that he was not barred by Carnegie Security.
I have never heard of anyone being barred from Carnegie by City Hall
before, it's always simply Carnegie Security that deals with
infractions of their code, that's what they are there for.
And as for her other, contradictory, explanation that it is a
WorkSafe issue. She's said this before, but she's also denied saying
it, both in person and in writing, so I called Gordon Harkness at
WorkSafe to find out the real story some time ago.
Mr.Harkness told me that there has been no assessment by WorkSafe of
William Simpson whatsoever, so that really concerns me, because
I think people are aware that WorkSafe only deals with cases of
violence or extreme verbal abuse, and nothing like that has
happened. So for her to use the Worksafe name in an attempt to
legitimize this barring is really just a heartless blackening of
William's reputation and that makes me really sad, because if they
will do this to him, a democratically elected board member, what
would they do to your average member who disagrees with their policy?
I find it frightening. And I know other members do too. I stand by my
statement:The Barring of William Simpson was a political act against
a whistleblower perpetrated by the city.