Terry Milewski is a Canadian journalist, who is currently the senior political correspondent for CBC News.[1] Prior to his current post, he was based in Vancouver. Milewski has come under fire from major political actors at times during his career for his reporting.[2]
Milewski has reported in television, radio, and print media, from many places around the world. Assignments have included Ottawa, Calgary, Jerusalem, Europe, the Middle East, South America and the United States. He immigrated to Canada from the United Kingdom.
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In 1998, the office of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien complained that Milewski had been "biased" in his coverage of protests at the 1997 Asian Pacific Economic Conference (APEC) summit in Vancouver, and Milewski was suspended for three days from the CBC.[3] Milewski's investigations of Chretien's possible connections to the RCMP attack on peaceful protestors at the summit were persistent, and the controversy eventually compelled Solicitor General Andy Scott to resign his cabinet post. The alleged bias was found in some remarks in e-mails between Milewski and arrested protestor Craig Jones, as well as in providing coverage of protestors' points of view.
The CBC reported that its Ombudsman, Marcel Pepin, over a 5 month period, reviewed all of Milewski's TV reporting and communications with sources concerning APEC. The report stated that Pepin found that "...concerns that Milewski was one-sided were not justified." At the time of the finding, the CBC also reported that Milewski was serving an 18-day suspension, but that "...Milewski was not suspended because of his journalism but for other undisclosed reasons." Pepin further credited Milewski with "aggressive and critical journalism" which was valuable both to the journalism community and the public at large.[4]
In 2006, Milewski reported in a documentary for the CBC that a minority within Canada's Sikh community was gaining political influence even while publicly supporting terrorist acts in support of the struggle for an independent Sikh state.[5] The World Sikh Organization (WSO) sued the CBC for "defamation, slander and libel", alleging that Milewski linked it to terrorism and damaged the reputation of the WSO within the Sikh community.[6][7]
After the motion of non-confidence had passed by the House of Commons, at the press conference Milewski accused Michael Ignatieff on not being forthcoming about forming coalition with the other opposition parties should the ruling Conservatives not win a majority, saying “Surely this coalition monkey is going to stay on your back every day of the campaign. Because people will assume that if you don’t rule it out, that’s because you’ve got something to hide.” Ignatieff maintained "if you want to replace the Harper government, you’ve got to vote Liberal. It can’t be clearer than that".[8]