‘Weinstein effect’ reaches foot of Parliament Hill
CELEBRITY CHEF ADMITS TO SEXUAL HARASSMENT
OTTAWA • In the summer of 2016, a new restaurant opened on Ottawa’s Sparks Street, just a block from Parliament Hill. Built in a grand building that once housed a bank, Riviera, with its 5-storey vaulted ceiling and expansive bar, was designed from the start to be a gathering place for the power-brokers of the capital.
Its star rose quickly. On budget day last March it played host to a closed- door party for the finance department and other senior government officials. It ranked seventh on enRoute magazine’s 2017 list of best new Canadian restaurants. But for months, a scandal had been brewing behind the scenes.
In a statement sent to media Wednesday, Riviera’s celebrity chef, Matthew Carmichael, admitted to repeated instances of sexual harassment of women who worked for him. Later that same day, the restaurant’s general manager, Stelios Doussis, announced his resignation, saying he “could not in good conscience continue in this workplace environment.”
The news sparked widespread reaction throughout Ottawa’s restaurant industry, where rumours about Carmichael’s conduct had swirled for months. But the aftershocks also rippled across Parliament Hill.
It’s not just Riveria’s proximity to the parliamentary precinct that made it a venue of choice on the Hill’s social circuit.
Doussis is the husband of cabinet minister Seamus O’Regan, and when Carmichael recently boasted in a newspaper about Doussis’ close friendship with “Justin and Sophie,” he wasn’t exaggerating. O’Regan and Doussis had joined Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Sophie Grégoire Trudeau on their now-infamous Christmas vacation to the Aga Khan’s private island in 2016.
Though Riviera’s pricey drinks and crowded dining area kept it from becoming an all-encompassing political hangout like Hy’s Steakhouse (which closed in 2015), it had swiftly earned a reputation as a place to bump into MPs and senior officials — including, on occasion, the Prime Minister.
In a lengthy confessional interview with CTV broadcast Wednesday evening, Carmichael said three women who worked at Riviera have come forward with complaints against him, and his legal counsel has reached a settlement with two of them. He said the cases involved inappropriate comments he made to the women about their “esthetic” and “attire,” but did not involve physical contact.
“They happened at certain points in the evening after I’d been drinking and using (drugs), I thought they were complimentary,” he said. “In my sobriety now, I realize that they were not. They were highly inappropriate.”
Carmichael said he had checked himself into rehab for cocaine and alcohol addiction on June 14, and that he had been removed from day-to-day operations at Riviera for five months.
While nobody has alleged wrongdoing on the part of Doussis, or of any of the politicos and lobbyists who frequent the establishment, the scandal at Riviera brings the “Weinstein Effect” — the latest wave of revelations of sexual misconduct by powerful men, touched off by the more than 50 women who have accused Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment or assault — to the foot of Parliament Hill.
And while the Weinstein Effect has not yet led to any public revelations in official Ottawa, the problem of sexual harassment in the boozy social world that surrounds the parliamentary precinct has been increasingly under the spotlight. In 2015, Liberal MPs Massimo Pacetti and Scott Andrews were expelled from caucus over allegations they had harassed two New Democratic MPs. In 2016, Hunter Tootoo was ejected from both cabinet and Liberal caucus after what he called a “consensual but inappropriate” relationship with a young staffer in his office, which he said was partly a result of his alcohol addiction.
In the CTV interview, Carmichael was repeatedly asked whether he’s coming forward now to get ahead of more damaging stories that might come out, but said that wasn’t the case. He alluded to Weinstein, and said it seemed like the right time to speak up.
“I’m continually seeing men who act like this, and I am one of those men, and they don’t own up to what they’ve done,” he said. “I’m here to be a champion for a movement to make men reevaluate how they conduct themselves.”
The question remains why Doussis only resigned on Wednesday, the day the story hit the media, given the harassment allegations against Carmichael first surfaced in May. In a statement provided through his lawyer, Doussis said management took “immediate action” after the women came forward.
Staff at a few other watering holes favoured by politicos noted this week that sexual harassment is a widespread and increasingly welldocumented problem in the hospitality industry, and it would be wrong to think that downtown Ottawa is special in that regard. The high profile of some guests, and the closeness to political power, however, could raise the stakes of speaking out.
Riviera’s clientele, which also draws heavily from Ottawa’s business class, doesn’t seem likely to abandon it. But with Doussis’ resignation, the damage to the restaurant’s reputation and political connections is already deep. When Budget 2018 comes out and the parties kick off, the government may have found a new spot to host its celebration.
I’M CONTINUALLY SEEING MEN WHO ACT LIKE THIS.