TVO investigates harassment accusation against host Paikin
Face of public broadcaster’s news-talk show
Sarah Thomson, publisher and outspoken former candidate for Toronto mayor, has accused popular TVO host Steve Paikin of sexual harassment.
Thomson initially detailed the alleged incident in a blog post published on her website, Women’s Post, on Feb. 2, where she writes of a lunch with an unnamed talk show host at Grano, a popular Italian eatery in north Toronto.
“Not five minutes into the lunch, the host asked me if I would sleep with him,” Thomson wrote. “My assistant almost spit his drink all over the table. I politely told the host that I loved my husband and would never do that.”
Paikin, the face of the Ontario public broadcaster’s flagship news-talk program, The Agenda with Steve Paikin, subsequently received an email from Thomson, which he forwarded to his employer on Saturday, according to a statement from TVO chief executive Lisa de Wilde.
De Wilde said in t he statement that TVO will be conducting a third- party investigation into the allegation and that, based on the “evidence to date,” the public broadcaster “sees no reason to remove Mr. Paikin from his role as host for The Agenda pending the outcome.”
Thomson did not respond to an interview request. Paikin did, but declined to talk at this juncture.
Thomson ran for mayor in 2010, a race that saw her garner just 1,883 votes in an election that turned into a landslide victory for the bombastic and deeply troubled Rob Ford. Three years later, Thomson accused then-mayor Ford of grabbing her buttocks and making comments of a sexual nature at a gala event. She also suggested that Ford, since deceased, could have been on cocaine.
Not long after the Ford story surfaced, writer Bar- bara Amiel, the wife of National Post founder and columnist Conrad Black, wrote a column for Maclean’s referencing an incident around 2002 — where Thomson propositioned her husband — offering to sleep with him in exchange for an interview.
“Though the proposition did not intrigue him,” Amiel wrote, “Conrad found it very enterprising and endorsed her for mayor in the last election.”
The Paikin allegation comes amid t he altered landscape of #MeToo, where women are speaking out — and men in positions of power and influence are toppling from their perches, amid accusations of sexual harassment. Patrick Brown, Matt Lauer, Harvey Weinstein — the list grows ever longer, and has now entangled Paikin, a widely admired 57-year-old with a robust re- sumé in civic journalism.
Paikin has worked at TVO since 1992, hosting a variety of programs. He has written several books, moderated election debates, is an Order of Canada member and a holder of multiple honorary degrees, as well as being chancellor of Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ont.
Thomson’s piece in the Women’s Post describes how she left the table after Paikin made the alleged sexual invitation, whereupon her assistant continued to sit and talk with him, asking him if asking women directly for sex actually worked.
Paikin, according to Thomson’s allegation, told her assistant the strategy worked “50 per cent of the time.”
“I hope he was just bragging,” Thomson wrote. “I’ve always wondered if t he women who are frequent guests on his show have slept with him.”
Thomson concludes her post with a warning for Paikin — and an invitation to women who have had a similar experience to contact her.
“We are coming. We aren’t rushing, but we are slowly gathering our facts and we won’t let up. Do the right thing, and step down.”