‘Not a shred of truth to any of this’: broadcaster

Steve Paikin, the popular Ontario public broadcasting host, hit back at allegations of sexual harassment with a searing Facebook post late Tuesday afternoon, calling out his accuser, former Toronto mayoral candidate Sarah Thomson, for telling lies and saying he was “gobsmacked by the allegations.”

“I mean no harm to Sarah Thomson,” Paikin wrote on his personal Facebook page, under t he heading: MY TURN. “But Sarah, you and I both know the incident you described never happened. It’s complete fiction. To be clear, I did not have sex, suggest, request, imply, or joke about having sex with you.”

The accusation against Paikin draws a spotlight on a contentious aspect of the # MeToo movement highlighted recently by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who said that women who come forward must always be believed.

Indeed, the “believe all women” refrain has become the unquestionable undercurrent to the #MeToo movement.

That’s what makes Paikin’s public response so unusual. This is now a # MeToo story that has two sides — with an accusation and a vociferous denial — and an ongoing third- party investigation, launched by Paikin’s employer, TVO, into Thomson’s charge that Paikin propositioned her for sex during a 2010 lunch.

Paikin alluded to the dangers of the prevailing climate in his Facebook post.

“Sadly, in this day and age, too many people are going to believe the lie, especially when it comes to this subject,” he wrote. “I am mortified that in many peoples’ eyes, I have lost the presumption of innocence that I’ve previously enjoyed. But I did not do these things. There is simply no truth to these allegations.”

Writes Paikin: “The # MeToo movement is too im- portant to be undermined by spurious allegations... I’ve spent 35 years building my reputation. In one fell swoop, these lies have prompted outrageous headlines and connected me to a story I have no business being connect to.

“Well, all that ends today. Today I begin to reclaim my reputation and fight back against these scurrilous allegations.”

The 600 - word post is a matter- of- fact but vehement denial of the allegations made by Thomson. She dropped the bombshell on a post on her blog Saturday, where she accused Paikin of inviting her to have sex while the two were having a business lunch at a Toronto restaurant. She said her assistant witnessed the request.

In the wake of the post, TVO swiftly announced it was investigating the allegations, but said that Paikin would stay on as host of their flagship program “The Agenda” through the investi- gation. TVO said that based on current evidence it didn’t see any reason to remove Paikin from the role — that itself was marked as somewhat of a departure from a heady few weeks of swift action to accusations of impropriety in Canadian politics.

Paikin said he was happy to comply with any investigation by his employers. In fact, he passed on Thomson’s allegation to them. “I wanted to convince them that there’s not a shred of truth to any of this.”

Thomson declined to comment Tuesday, but was active on her Twitter account, tweeting, prior to Paikin posting his Facebook message, that, “Women don’t come forward because they get attacked on social media. Did Paikin go public to scare other women from coming forward? Sad how easily he’s playing people.”

She later tweeted: “It’s a bit scary the number of men that are bashing me today.”