Former CBC host Evan Solomon has been named the new anchor of CTV’s political flagship show Question Period. But what kind of watchdog will he be?

It is a swift and significant return to the political limelight after Solomon was fired from the Canadian public broadcaster last year for taking secret commission payments related to art sales from people he dealt with while at the CBC, which were first revealed in a Star investigation.

“It seems there are second acts in Canadian broadcasting,” said Jeffrey Dvorkin, director of the journalism program at the University of Toronto and the former ombud and vice-president of news for National Public Radio in the United States.

“People do have a short attention span, especially in broadcasting. This is a chance for him to be renewed. But he’ll live and die by the viewership. In the end, this may not be so much a restoration as a temporary tryout.”

CTV is Canada’s largest private broadcaster. Question Period, which started in 1967, is the broadcaster’s third-oldest series in production behind CTV National News and W5. It is unclear how Solomon will put his own imprint on the show.

Since his departure from the CBC, Solomon has not been idle. He works as Bell Media Radio’s national affairs specialist. Bell Media owns CTV. Apart from hosting Ottawa Now on 580 News Talk Radio in Ottawa, he hosts a syndicated weekend radio program Real Talk, which he is expected to continue. He also writes a column for Maclean’s magazine.

A CTV spokesperson said neither Solomon nor CTV News president Wendy Freeman were available for interviews with the Star.

U of T’s Dvorkin said that the “missing link” in Canadian political journalism is that there are “very few tough questioners.

“This is a chance for Solomon to change that style,” says Dvorkin. “The big risk in Canadian journalism is that because we are such a small country there is a tendency to drink each other’s bathwater. Access sometimes means you have to be chummy. But if you look at other areas of the world such as in Britain, you see political interviewers take no prisoners. He is still a competent and effective interviewer and it’s a chance to do the rigorous tough-minded journalism that audiences should expect.”

As the host of CBC’s Power and Politics, the well-regarded Solomon was a marquee name with a large following in Ottawa, and was considered a potential heir to national news anchor Peter Mansbridge.

But a Star investigation by reporter Kevin Donovan revealed that Solomon had been brokering the sale of art owned by a Toronto area collector. The revelations led to his dismissal by the broadcaster. In at least one case, he took commissions of more than $300,000 for several pieces of art and did not disclose to the buyer that he was being paid fees for introducing buyer and seller. The buyers were elite Canadian power brokers, and included Mark Carney, the current governor of the Bank of England, and Jim Balsillie, co-founder of Research In Motion (now BlackBerry).

Solomon, as a journalist, dealt with both men in his role at the CBC.

In a statement last year, Solomon said he did not view his art business as a conflict with his journalism and “never intentionally used my position at the CBC to promote the business.”

The revelations came at a difficult time for the CBC, already under a cloud because of sexual assault, choking or harassment charges against Q radio host Jian Ghomeshi last year. The controversial former host was acquitted on five of the charges at trial in March, and a sixth was withdrawn last month.

“We’re thrilled to welcome Evan to the CTV News family, where he will serve viewers with incisive political discourse each week,” CTV’s Freeman said in a news release. “Already embedded into Ottawa’s political scene, Evan is an accomplished journalist with a passion for breaking news that matters.”

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Solomon takes over from Robert Fife, the current host of the show and the Globe and Mail’s Ottawa bureau chief. Fife will continue to appear on Question Period. The final broadcast of the current season is Sunday, July 3. Solomon will take over when the show resumes in September for a 46th season.

With files from Kevin Donovan

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