I once heard the saying "fix the problem, not the blame". I like that saying.
A pilot? (or a few, perhaps) felt that their opinion or unhappiness was not being taken seriously, so they went and complained to the CBC. Unfortunate that the whole of our industry could not either educate/take seriously/or mentor this (these) pilot(s) into feeling that their concern was being addressed. If this is a situation where the pilot ratted out his employer without taking all the correct responsibility first, that's sad.
If it is an "informed" passenger, I hope that they are proudly paying the true cost to operate a really well maintained aircraft, and not "dealing down" the ticket or charter price.
A pilot who really feels that it is necessary for safety's sake to ground an aircraft, has many ways to do that, from taking away the journey log or flight manual, to tagging the whole plane U/S at the controls.
Whether justified or not, getting the media involved is a poor way to address these concerns.
It is the prior pilot's legal and moral responsibility to assure that any defect is reported, so as to assure that manitenance action is taken, and the next pilot can make an informed decision to fly it or not next flight.
The next pilot has the responsibility to apply appropriate standards (MEL, Flight Manual, CAR's standards) to decide if the aircraft is adequately equipped for the intended flight. it is of no use whatever, having the media involved in that process.
Few of us can say that we have not flown an aircraft with a known defect. I hope that none of us have flown an aircraft when we felt a risk might result from the defect, or simply did not understand the risk.
I am guilty of not insisting that an aircraft be grounded, following my discovering an obscure defect in it during a test flight. I did immediately report the defect directly to TC, and I was told that TC would have the aircraft examined for the defect I had found. I also reported that defect to the pilot who took the aircraft, and he called back to confirm that he agreed about my observation. The defect was of a nature that a written "snag", though appropriate, would have been difficult to write up, and absolutely impossible for maintenance to rectify. Before he took it back for the planned examination, he killed himself, and an innocent person, in the aircraft. I hold the opinion that the defect was a contributing factor. I learned my lesson. I could have prevented further flight of the aircraft, and should have, but I was trying too not "rock the boat" and trusting in a system to take care of it, once I had reported it. It failed, and I learned. Next time, I'll be much more definate.
This subject will come up forever. The only thing that will stop it, is either training all pilots to high maintenance standards, and all maintainers to be pilots - or in the case of my old airline, carry a flight engineer on every flight - he does have the final say!
This will blow over, and come up again, but the underlying problem will never be completely solved, and someone will always gripe about it! All we can do is constantly remind outselves, take care of each other by communicating, and try harder to get it right next time.