Report blames sexual slogan from Experience Regina rebrand on junior staff member

An independent review into how Regina's tourism agency handled a failed rebrand says a junior employee approved sexualized slogans before senior management could vet them.

The third-party party review released Thursday said that while some of the slogans had been known among members of a committee made up of Tourism Regina staff, senior management did not rubber-stamp their use before they were made public in March.

Instead, the George B. Cuff & Associate report says, a junior staffer published the slogans online before senior management or the board could look at them.

"The [slogans] are still on the table, the staff member got them in front of them, gets called by the website designer who says, `Are we good to go with the slogans?' And the junior staff member says, `Yeah, I guess so,"' George Cuff, the report's author, told reporters Thursday.

"So, that's the first time [the agency] probably had an opportunity to make a significant decision, and he did so without getting the green light from somebody up the food chain."

The slogans received public backlash for making reference to the city's name rhyming with vagina, using phrases such as "show us your Regina" and "the city that rhymes with fun."

The review said the Regina Exhibition Association Ltd., which is responsible for Tourism Regina, had been in a state of disorganization, as it was doing the rebrand alongside other high-profile projects.

Former experienced senior leadership had also left the organization, it added, resulting in limited oversight in the review process.

After the fallout, Tourism Regina pulled all rebranding from its website and reverted back to its original logos.

The organization's CEO Tim Reid also apologized.

Reid is not to be fired, as the review says such action would be costly.

No one else is to be let go, Cuff said. He added no one has resigned since the rollout.

"Are we going to somehow extract a pound of flesh, that somehow we're going to end up as a better organization, by firing either the person who hits the send button?" he said.

"Are we going to fire the CEO, spend copious amounts of money on the severance package, copious amounts of money finding a new one and copious amounts of money getting that person started up all over again?"