Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Behind the Scenes of the John Tory Sex Scandal: Toronto Mike'd #1202

Episode Date: February 11, 2023

In this 1202nd episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with the man who led The Toronto Star's investigation into John Tory's affair with a Toronto City Hall staffer David Rider. Alternate title: Everything you wanted to know about the John Tory sex scandal reporting (but didn't know who to ask). Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Canna Cabana, Ridley Funeral Home and Electronic Products Recycling Association.

Welcome to episode 1202 of Toronto Mic'd. Proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, a fiercely independent craft brewery who believes in supporting communities, good times, and brewing amazing beer. Order online for free local home delivery in the GTA. Palma Pasta. Enjoy the taste of fresh, homemade Italian pasta and entrees

from Palma Pasta in Mississauga and Oakville. Electronic Products Recycling Association. Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. Ridley Funeral Home. Pillars of the community

since 1921. And Canna Cabana, the lowest prices on cannabis, guaranteed over 150 stores across the country. Learn more at cannacabana.com. Joining me this Saturday, the morning after the Toronto Star published an article exposing John Tory's affair with a Toronto City Hall staffer, is the man who led the reporting team at the Toronto Star, David Ryder. So David, just a typical relaxing Saturday morning for you. Yes, I don't know. I've got the whole day ahead of me. Another boring news week in the city of Toronto. City hall is boring.

That's what they told me when I took this job. Look, I know you're a busy man and we'll get right to it, but we're going to have to talk twice as fast as usual. Can you do that? Sure. Who, I want you to name check, who at the Toronto Star worked on this, we'll call it the John Tory had an affair

with a City Hall staffer story. Oh, like probably like 15 people if you include lawyers and everybody else. But I will say, so I led the reporting team, which was me, Ben Spurr, and Alicia Hashem. And then the three main editors would be doug cudboor uh nicole mcintyre and jordan hillmophar that would be kind of the the main team with big assists from people like rob benzie at queens park and others who were also hearing

some stuff okay so there that leads to my uh my big question here. How and when do you first learn about this story? So this was a weird one. Sometimes you just get a tip and then there's the story. This one started with rumblings about John Tory's marriage going back actually before Christmas.

And I made inquiries with the mayor's office. That's not normally like the kind of story we do in Canadian politics. You kind of leave their private life but they have been a public power couple so if they were going to make it official we would do some kind of a story not a big story um and you know i just heard that back from them which was basically like yeah there's some stuff but you know the mayor's not ready to talk about it um and i said well like if papers are filed or something i'll i'll do a story and they were like fine um and then about i'm gonna say a week to 10 days ago everything's a bit of a blur we got a more like and i keep hearing stuff like it was i think among

political circles it was a bit of an open secret that barb the mayor's wife, had not been seen around at all and that maybe there was some trouble in paradise. But then, yeah, about a week to 10 days ago, I got a very specific tip that, in fact, there was, that the mayor was having or had a relationship with a specific woman who had worked in his office and quite a bit of shock because he will be 69 in May, and the woman was now about 31, and was in her late 20s when she worked in the mayor's office. To be honest, I really didn't believe it. Like, I get fat tips all the time, and 95% of them are either completely wrong or at least a little bit wrong. There are certainly politicians, if I got this tip about, I would say, yeah, you know what, that sounds right.

John Tory is known as a Boy Scout. He's known as at City Hall, they call him No Story Tory. Two Beer Tory, if they're going out. You know, that is kind of his brand. He took over from Rob Ford saying, I'm going to bring boring back to Toronto City Hall. And by and large, he did. Um, and then, so I started putting out feelers and a lot of people, surprising to me, a lot of people who he's really close to who, you know, might, you know,

they're going to tell me a little bit here and there, um, didn't know anything, but then I got one or two who said, I think I know what you're talking about. And then we just kind of kicked it into gear and kept pushing and pushing and pushing to the point where we had enough. We put in a round of first questions a week ago, Friday, and then we had enough to put in very detailed, very specific questions yesterday. And then I was told we would get an answer back. And then within an hour, he had called the news conference and quit. Okay, so I want to get this sequence of events right.

So you basically, you journalists at the Toronto Star tipped off John Tory that you were working on this story about, I guess, a week ago yesterday, a week ago. So you had about seven days before the story broke. Am I hearing that right? Roughly, yeah. Roughly like that. And by the way, so it sounds like, you know, what started as like a, just, you know, it doesn't take a journalist to realize that John Tory and his wife are not particularly close geographically because we didn't see her around at all for this, you. And I understand she's been living in Florida.

But obviously, there was a lot of smoke as you investigate that story. And you were just simply digging in to find out if there was actually fire here. Yeah, I mean, I think the thing that a lot of people from the outside who don't get involved in news kind of think everything we hear we just automatically throw up on the web. There are sort of some kind of people who are calling themselves media who that's kind of the way it works.

Not podcasters. Not me, of course, because I actually for what it's worth, that's not my bag. I would pass it on to real journalists with actual lawyers and let them do the proper story. Yeah, I'm just joking. But we do a lot of discussion and a lot of debate about what constitutes news. And there's an old axiom that says just because it's of interest to the public doesn't mean it's public interest. And that's public interest in large capital letters that says something that is fair game for journalists. So the main thing I think in the

last week, like we could have got to yesterday and just decided we're not going to do anything. And I think the main thing would, the main question we had to figure out for ourselves is, did this relationship start while she was in the office? Was this a relationship between arguably the most powerful man in Toronto and a relatively junior, much younger, early career staffer? In the post-MeToo era, I think that raises all kinds of implications. I think that raises all kinds of implications. If we had been assured and believed that nothing happened between them until she had moved into this other job, honestly, I think we probably would have not reported the story.

This is from my perspective. The story is that this was a city hall staffer. You're right. that this was a city hall staffer. You're right. Maybe it's not a public interest that a man in a marriage with geographical difficulties has a consensual affair. That's a whole different ball of wax.

But the fact that this affair was with a city hall staffer makes it, I think, a real news story that should be investigated and reported. Yeah, and I think John Tory, who's kind of a journalist himself, he was on 1010 for all those years. a real news story that should be investigated and reported. Yeah, and I think John Tory would, you know, who's kind of a journalist himself,

like he was on 1010 for all those years, I don't think he would debate it. And I think the fact that he resigned said that he understood the gravity of the mistake he made, which was all the more shocking because I really think most of us couldn't believe that he would make such a mistake. Well, that was actually going to be one of my questions, which is, did you have any inkling at all

that maybe he would resign when you press publish on that article? Yes. I walked into that press conference knowing he was going to resign, but it was still shocking to me. And I'll just unpack that a little bit. So we're talking,

the story is heating up and a lot of political people know we're asking questions and it's kind of buzzing around different circles. I think on Thursday my colleague Rob Benzie who is very tapped into the Queen's Park and including the progressive conservative

grapevine which was buzzing very loudly, he was buzzing very loudly, he said to me, people think he's going to have to quit. And at that point, I was thinking, I don't think he... Kind of the trend in politics right now is to not resign, to just follow the Rob Ford or Donald Trump playbook and say, deny it or just say it doesn't matter. And then on Friday, it was getting louder and I was hearing from my sources that he

was at least considering quitting. And then when we put in our second round of questions, which, as I said, were extremely detailed, I very heard quickly back, he doesn't think he can survive it. He's going to go. And I think the calculus for him was in his response to me which was through a lawyer um and in the press conference he is taking great pains to try to protect the woman involved and who we did not name um and i think he i think there was probably there must have been some calculus on him that if he stayed in office, it was going to be a bit of a Rob Ford situation where

everything he tried to show up to announce, you know, garbage collection day, we would start asking about his personal life and about this woman and about other things. And it was going to be, it was, you know, a greater chance that her privacy would have been invaded. I have to think that was that traded into it. her privacy would have been invaded. I have to think that was, that traded into it. I've also heard that he was under some pressure from his family

to take responsibility and basically take the fall. Now, you mentioned there's almost an open secret. People knew you were working on this story. At least the insiders knew. Was there ever any possibility a different news outlet would go to press of this story

before the Toronto Star? I think there was a very strong possibility. I had information because I would come to sources and then talk to them and then a day or two later they would say, oh, I got a call from this outlet or that outlet. So my information is

at least two other main Toronto news organizations were actively working on the story. We were the first to get enough credible information to put the questions into the mayor's office and to force an answer. So I think that's why we broke the story. Now, you mentioned you didn't name the young woman

and I'm not going to name the young woman right now either. But, you know, since your story broke, I'm not going to name the young woman right now either uh but you know since your story broke I have been just me Toronto Mike has been fed the name of this woman in her occupation and so much details about this woman uh but from several sources so I'm just wondering uh was that ever a consideration to actually include her as part of the story and maybe you know where she works now being part of the story yes uh that was a very active conversation over the past week uh if we land if we do a story and if we especially if we break it and we're kind of like setting the tone um do we name her uh there was a lot of debate and i would say a final decision on that was not really made, and that was by my editor, Nicole.

Final decision was not made until yesterday. We did reach out to her because there is an argument that sometimes by reflexively not naming or kind of leaving them out of the story, they might have something they want to say, right? Like some, yeah, we don't want to ignore her because then you might do the story and she comes out and says, you know what torrey's saying is not true we made multiple attempts including going and knocking on the door of her condo and leaving a letter and leaving a card we made multiple attempts to to find out from her uh plus email addresses and everything else to

find out from her if she wanted to speak either on the record or on background and we would get her side of the story and also whether she wanted to be named on the record or on background and we would get her side of the story and also whether she wanted to be named and there are some cases where the the other person does want to be named uh we received absolutely no response and we saw we saw evidence investigating this that there was attempts either by her directly or people around her to obscure her personal details that I think she knew that there was going to be questions asked. So here as we speak, and don't worry, I know you're so busy and I'm almost done here, David. You've been amazing. Thank you for this. But it's 10 a.m. on a Saturday. Just got back from my kids practice. So if I know the name of this woman,

and again, like I said, it's not like one person said, multiple people all giving me the same name. It's only a matter, I mean, I should check online right now. This woman will be named today. This will be somewhere. Someone, because there are institutions with less journalistic integrity than the Toronto Star. You referenced

them at the beginning, but I suspect this woman's name will be public at some point today but uh not for me that's all i'll say yeah i i you know i i have i i feel badly for her and uh you know whatever you think of anybody's kind of actions and romantic liaisons uh what i fear is that um social media right now it can be so toxic and and especially towards women and young women i mean we can all imagine the kind of adjectives that are going to be thrown at her um going forward and uh i hope uh my I hope the other media outlets follow our lead. And that is our hope.

You know, and there was a debate about, do we include any details? We felt we had to just to assure people that we actually know what we're talking about. If you just vaguely said he had a relationship with another person, you know, that kind of like,

you know, we ran in the Rob Ford situation where, you know, even after we reported a story, you know, every which way people said, well, maybe it's not that or maybe it's Toronto Star's line. So we had to include some details that said, yes, this is a real thing. But I really hope that people are understanding that she she she's not a public figure. She's not a politician, and she has a right to privacy. I agree with you there.

Three more quick, quick, quick questions. Is it at all frustrating to you, David, that there's this misconception out there that John Tory just decided on a Friday night to confess his sins and resign, when in fact, we both know that the timing of that confession and resignation was 100% because the Toronto Star pressed publish

in the content management system and went live with that story. Yeah, sure, there's frustration. I've been on Twitter a little bit when people, because I've seen somebody who was, I think, kind of put themselves out as a media expert, was saying, well, there's obviously more to the story because he just did this. And I was saying, well,

yeah, I was saying for context, actually, he only did this because the Toronto star, you know, published the story. But, you know,

that's, that's the nature of media. And, uh, uh, you know, I, a lot of other media outlets,

uh, I heard CBC radio this morning on their national news credit us. A lot are crediting a lot. Aren't. No, I meaniting. A lot aren't. No, I mean, the Toronto Sun didn't credit you because they just decided, oh, he made a press conference. We'll just quote the press conference and ignore the impetus for the press conference. Yeah, that's frustrating.

Oh, I see this stuff, David. I'm out there defending you. I will say there is a policy at the Toronto Star that when there's a big story that another outlet breaks, that we credit them with the break in doing our follow-up screen. Right, as you should. Is there any more to this story that you journalists at the Toronto Star are still chasing? Yeah, there's a lot of threads. I mean, there isn't debate, I guess now, on how much more do we care about John Tory's private life,

given that he will soon not be mayor anymore. And that we'll have to figure that out. You know, I can say, I think generally, you know, some people have said it was there, was there anybody else? I don't know. I would say if there's somebody else and it, and it was totally private and not, not anything to do with his office or his duties as mayor, I don't think we're actually going to spend time on that right um yeah but i think they're i think the big question and i don't

know how we'll get at it but because i don't think the mayor is going to sit down with me anytime soon the big question is is what was in you know the old uh the the old um hugh grant question i guess like what the hell were you thinking? You know, like, why? After being a political loser for so long and then winning and then, you know, becoming a certified winner, why would he risk all of that for, you know, a romantic alliance? Yeah, I know. I know. No story, Tori, you called him earlier.

This is why a lot of people, when they hear John Tori's sex scandal, this is like, those words don't belong together. No, I know. And that's why when I first got the tip, I honestly didn't believe it. I thought, well, I got to do my due diligence, but this isn't going to take very long.

And then, you know, all of a sudden sudden I was seeing there might be some smoke there. Wow. But, yeah, I mean, and the distance from Barb, it's true. His wife, I think, has mostly lived in Florida for the last while. The fact that she doesn't like politics is well known, and he's talked about it in the past. I mean, having said that, he is like a very wealthy man. If he had wanted to hop on a private jet every weekend, he could have,

although he was almost working every weekend. I mean, I couldn't believe his schedule where he hit like eight events on a weekend. And I just, it seemed nuts. Maybe in hindsight, I guess he should have done a little less marrying and a little more kind of like marrying, flying down and spending time. But that's for him and his wife to figure out. All right, last question, David. There's a story circulating, and I have not done my due diligence to see how much credence there is to this story, but there is a story circulating

that Doug Ford will resign as premier and run for mayor of Toronto. Any truth to this? Is there anything there being followed by the good journalists at this time? You know, I don't think there's's at the moment, there's nothing credible. And I honestly, it would surprise me. I mean, having said that, the whole John Tory story surprised me.

But as premier, he essentially is mayor. I mean, you know, Doug Ford cut the size of council. He, you know, he's cut funding for development charges. He tried to cut funding for public health before something called the COVID-19 came along. He has more control over Toronto City Hall than anybody, including the mayor. And he also, you know, is a is a national figure who, you know, who might have federal ambitions. So I would be surprised. I thought I definitely had my phone is being pinging with that.

Other people are saying maybe he'll send Michael Ford ford you know who's an mpp maybe he'll want michael ford to be a mayor and then it'll be a kind of a ford tag team you know running uh running ontario um there's a lot of speculation at the moment i don't have anything credible now because you've been there for the uh and i i know i said last question but now just i thought that you were there for the Rob Ford tenure. So it's almost like as big a story and as frenetic as this is, you're well trained for this. Like it's like you must be going into that, you know, oh, I've been there, done that. Just a typical day at the office.

This is the way it is in Toronto politics now. Like, you know what I mean? Like this, we've been through worse, if you will, in the city. Yeah, I'd say yesterday wasn't a typical day. It was definitely high drama behind the scenes and waiting for the story to hit and then waiting for the

Mayor's Press Conference that we knew was coming. It was exciting and high drama. I would say it definitely brought back maybe a little bit of PTSD about the Rob Ford years. You know, John Tory has been mostly I've been covering policy and things about the budget and all those other kinds of things. There hasn't been a lot of personal stuff with Rob Ford.

It was just such an onslaught. I mean, people people forget that there was like a thousand scandals before the scandal. And they were a lot of them that were little, like, you know, reading while driving or having his, uh, AIDS be football coaches on company on city time. Like there was all those things. And then there was him being blind drunk at the garrison ball, which was a pre predecessor to crack.

So that, that was just like an aerial bombardment. Whereas this was just like one big explosion. So all that to say, yes, it's not a regular day at the office, but I certainly, you know, have had this feeling before. I have your colleague, Ed Keenan, visiting soon. And now we have something to talk about. So they're on the bright side.

But thank you. I should say, Ed was right in the middle of reporting this as well. He was a valued team member. Well, you know, Ed was right in the middle of reporting this as well. He was a valued team member. Well, you know, he was right in the middle of reporting the insurrection, the January 6th insurrection. So,

uh, there you go. Once again, so we'll have Keenan on the show soon, but thank you for your service. FOTM, David Ryder and shout out to my painter. Yeah.

Shout out to Chris Brown. And that brings us to the end of our 1,202nd episode of Toronto Mic'd. You can follow me on Twitter. I'm at Toronto Mike. David is at DM Ryder. Our friends at Great Lakes Brewery are at Great Lakes Beer. Palma Pasta is at Palma Pasta. Recycle My Electronics

are at EPRA underscore Canada. Ridley Funeral Home are at Ridley FH. And Canna Cabana are at Canna Cabana underscore. See you Monday when my guests are the dynamic duo from Goodnight Sunrise. wander around and drink some goodness

from a tin Cause my UI check has just come in Ah, where you been? Because everything is kind of rosy and green Yeah, the wind is cold

but the snow wants me to dance And your smile is fine We'll be right back. Well, you've been under my skin for more than eight years. It's been eight years of laughter and eight years of tears. And I don't know what the future can hold or do for me and you. But I'm a much better man for having known you. Oh, you know that's true because everything is coming up rosy and gray Yeah, the wind is cold

but the smell of snow won't stay today And your smile is fine and it's just like mine and it won't go away Cause everything is rosy and gray And it won't go away Cause everything is Rolling in gray Well I've been told

That there's a sucker born Every day But I wonder who Yeah I wonder who Maybe the one who doesn't realize There's a thousand shades of grey Cause I know that's true, yes I do I know it's true, yeah

I know it's true How about you? All that picking up trash and then putting down roads And they're brokering stocks, the class struggle explodes And I'll play this guitar just the best that I can Maybe I'm not and maybe I am But who gives a damn because Everything is coming up rosy and gray

Yeah, the wind is cold, but the smell of snow warms me today And your smile is fine, it's just like mine And it won't go away Because everything is rosy and gray Well, I've kissed you in France Well I've kissed you in France And I've kissed you in Spain And I've kissed you in places I better not name

And I've seen the sun go down On Sacré-Cœur But I like it much better going down on you yeah you know that's true because everything is coming up rosy and green yeah the wind is cold but the smell of snow warms us today and your smile is fine and it's just like mine and it won't go away Cause everything is rosy now, everything is rosy and everything is rosy and gray Mike, all I can say is congratulations on your 1,000th show. What an incredible milestone for your podcast.

A thousand episodes filled with stories and people and places that make up our great city. So thank you for being a champion of our city and for showcasing it on the Toronto Mic'd podcast. Here's to many more episodes.