A perfect storm: Investigator explains Experience Regina report

At the end of the day, George Cuff isn’t laying the blame for the Experience Regina controversy at any one person’s feet or recommending anyone be fired.

“I think it would be foolish, quite frankly, as an organization to have something that slips out of sight, falls off the page when it shouldn’t have, and you’re going to now hunt around for somebody and pull the plug, fire them, and start again,” said Cuff.

He said there is the matter of accountability and it’s important to take a look at what Regina Exhibition Association Ltd. (REAL) is doing, but firing the junior staffer who ultimately had their finger on the button, or shelling out the cash to fire the CEO, find a new one and train them, wouldn’t necessarily make REAL a better organization.

On Thursday, Cuff and the REAL board publicly released the third-party report Cuff did into the Experience Regina launch and the sexually suggestive slogans that some found offensive, like “Show us your Regina.”

The 114-page report detailed the context in which REAL took over operation of Tourism Regina and undertook the short-lived rebrand to Experience Regina.

It talked about how REAL already had a lot on its plate and that the tourism move added a lot of complexity to REAL without a lot of extra resources.

“I’m not convinced that all of that was thought through carefully,” said Cuff.

The report also detailed how many thought the rebrand and transition would be a slow process, but president-CEO Tim Reid and other management pushed for it to be done sooner, resulting in what Cuff described as “a difficult deadline.”

“So now you’re rushing to a deadline which some people had expressed concerns about and the attitude seemed to be, ‘Let’s go for it. Let’s get it done,’ ” said Cuff.

Aside from the tourism aspect, the report found that REAL already had a lot to deal with, including running the Frost Festival, the Catalyst Committee, and its regular operations. The report found several people thought a mistake like this was inevitable, given how many balls REAL was trying to keep in the air.

One of the large problems Cuff found was a lack of oversight resulting in part from a lack of policies and procedures, but also a lack of staffing. The marketing director was absent mid-December, the destination director was working from home, and the vice-president of marketing and tourism wasn’t hired until a few weeks before the launch happened.

“While each (of those involved in the day-to-day processes) was involved in various pieces of the Launch, no one seemed to be in charge of the overall product, other than (Reid). Each felt that they were running a step behind where their management wanted them to be and as a result, felt that the final product and resulting furor was not surprising,” read the report.

Cuff called it a perfect storm.

“You have a turnover of seasoned leadership both within tourism as well within REAL so the very people that should have been there providing oversight, in my view, were not at the table,” he said Thursday.

Cuff called it an organizational failure but noted that REAL had been trying to address it.

Had there been appropriate oversight, there may have been opportunities for problems to have been caught. The report said the slogan “Show us your Regina” was added to the Experience Regina template site March 1 and sweaters with that and other slogans were added to the site March 9 along with a product launch review that leaders were invited to, though the report didn’t say who, if any, attended.

He explained that at the end of the day, it was a junior staffer who sent off an email at the last minute, without proper approval, giving the OK for the website to go live with the “offensive slogans” included, and many within REAL later wondered how it ever was approved.

Cuff said funding is a factor, that REAL needs to have appropriate people in leadership positions and that may mean more resources.

“You’ve got to have the right funding from the city in order to find those people and pay them appropriately,” said Cuff.

In his report, Cuff didn’t let the board or city council off the hook as they’re leaders at the top of the ladder.

“It was also in November that we find evidence that a senior (REAL) manager was encouraging the company involved in marketing the new logo (and merchandise) to make use of one of the sexualized logos ‘City that Rhymes with Fun’ and to have that ready for the proposed December launch,” read one part of the report.

“Members of Council were viewed as embracing the need to be seen as ‘edgy’ with one wearing clothing at a virtual meeting which featured some of the offensive words,” the report added on another page.

Cuff’s report had a number of recommendations for REAL, several of which amounted to the organization needing to take a good look as itself and its processes.

REAL’s board

Wayne Morsky, the chair of REAL’s board of directors, said the board is committed to following the recommendations in the report, learning about what happened and being transparent with the community and its stakeholders.

He said the board has had the report for about a week but is still in the early stages of reviewing it.

Morsky explained the board’s initial priorities will be to review policies and procedures related to governance, define what information must be shared with the board, direct management to review operational procedures, review the organizational structure including capacity and capability of REAL and Tourism Regina, and establish a tourism advisory committee.

He also made a point of saying that Reid will remain as REAL’s president and CEO.

“His extensive experience provides immense value to the organization,” said Morsky.

Given the observations in the report of how much REAL was taking on and the things that appeared to fall through the cracks because of it, Morsky was asked whether taking on Tourism Regina was a mistake. He said no.

“Obviously we were not prepared to handle it as well as we thought we could,” said Morsky.

The chair said they had talked about the load tourism would add but also said “there was a lot going on at the time.”

“We believe that the reason that Tourism Regina was placed in REAL still exists today and we are going to continue to work in that manner by going through our organizational structure and reviewing the procedures that we’ve put in place and what we need to do to make change,” said Morsky.

Money is part of the processes REAL will take a look at, according to Morsky, with a lot of factors affecting the organization’s financial situation.

“Funding has been a challenge for us, not only to keep going but also to deal with these things that are coming on our plate,” he said.

On Wednesday night, Regina city council pushed back a decision to restructure REAL’s debt and allow it access to more of its credit, which Reid has said is needed to keep the campus operating.