The CBC hired a private investigator to tail a former contract employee despite assurances from the provincial workplace compensation board that the injured man was not feigning.

Lighting operator Dave MacDonald, 53, was injured on Parliament Hill in 1999 while helping prepare the CBC's Canada Day coverage and since then, the taxpayer-funded broadcaster been fighting him over compensation.

MacDonald broke an ankle, but wasn't aware of the severity of the injury, so he continued to walk on it.

Subsequent operations have left him in chronic pain and dependent on painkillers.

"They tell me I'll never work again," MacDonald said. "I take the (Dilaudid) equivalent of about 36 Tylenol threes a day. Every doctor I have seen has said I will never work again.

"It's unanimous, but CBC won't accept it. CBC is saying, 'We're not accountable to anybody, and we will use our lawyers because we can.'"

Ontario's Workplace Safety and Insurance Board pays MacDonald benefits that amount to $40,000 or more per year.

If CBC loses the case, it will be responsible for the payments. If MacDonald loses, he loses his benefits. A hearing has been scheduled for June.

The cash-strapped broadcaster confirmed it hired a detective agency to conduct video surveillance on MacDonald and has occasionally initiated similar investigations in other cases.

"It's rare, but we do it to ensure that the disability insurance program is not abused," CBC spokesman Jeff Keay said.

Keay refused to say how much the CBC paid the detective agency or how much the corporation had spent fighting the MacDonald case, but did say that surveillance of MacDonald ended in 2003.

An Orléans resident, MacDonald said he was never aware he was being tailed by detectives and only found out late last year after partially winning a Freedom of Information fight with the CBC for documents related to his case.

One of those documents contained a report sent by detectives to CBC lawyer Stephen Satchel.

The detectives reported that MacDonald "displays a noticeable limp" and walks his dogs twice a day, "but uses a cane" and "seems very conscious of others around him and surveillance is difficult."

They recommended to the CBC that surveillance be ended because it wasn't proving useful.

In a note to CBC management, Satchel recommended that CBC examine all the detectives' videotapes before making a final decision.

"If for any reason we think additional surveillance is warranted ... we can reinstate surveillance," Satchel wrote.

"Although these somewhat disappointing results (sic) I still feel the money was well spent.

"We now have a clearer picture of what to expect as evidence from MacDonald at the hearing and it was also worth paying the money just to attempt to find an easier way out."

MacDonald has been unable to get copies of the surveillance tapes.

MacDonald was a National Arts Centre technician and one of a team of NAC workers hired on short-term contracts to work for the CBC's Canada Day broadcast.

Keay refused to say why the CBC was continuing to pursue the MacDonald case a decade after he was injured.

MacDonald said he was rarely able to sleep more than two hours at a time, and, although he walks his dogs -- a low impact exercise -- is leery of attempting any other health-promoting activity such as swimming in case he is being watched by detectives.

"I've put on 60 or 70 pounds since I got hurt, but I don't want them saying, 'If he can swim, he can work,'" he said.

"The CBC is sitting on a doctor's report that says I have psycho-traumatic disability related to chronic pain related to the injury and I'm never likely to work again.

"I just want them to leave me alone, but they keep dragging me into hearings."

The CBC, which receives more than $1 billion in taxpayer funds, is in dire financial straits.

CBC president Hubert Lacroix said this week that the broadcaster was looking to borrow money from banks, a move that requires legal permission from the federal government.