Toronto Mike'd: The Official Toronto Mike Podcast - Scott Laurie: Toronto Mike'd #1438

Episode Date: February 27, 2024

In this 1438th episode of Toronto Mike'd, Mike chats with Scott Laurie about his media career and the injustice that he feels he experienced in the CTV National newsroom at Bell Media in 2018. Toronto Mike'd is proudly brought to you by Great Lakes Brewery, Palma Pasta, Ridley Funeral Home, The Advantaged Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada and Electronic Products Recycling Association. If you would like to support the show, we do have partner opportunities available. Please email Toronto Mike at [e-mail]

Welcome to episode 1438 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. RecycleMyElectronics.ca Committing to our planet's future means properly recycling our electronics of the past. The Advantage Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada.

Valuable perspective for Canadian investors who want to remain knowledgeable, informed and focused on long-term success. And Ridley Funeral Home, pillars of the community since 1921. Today making his Toronto Mike debut is Scott Lorry. Welcome to Toronto Mike Scott. Thank you very much. Happy to be here. I'm glad you're here. And off the top, Midtown Gord, who's a regular contributor to the program. Back in the day, Midtown Gord would phone into the Fan 590 and he would talk to like Gord Stelick and Damien Cox.

And Gord Stelick gave him the nickname Midtown Gord. And this is now his handle. Like Gord said, it is so Midtown Gord. And Midtown Gord has been a great supporter of this program. Midtown Gord says, I met Scott at Queens Park last year when us education workers were striking. He puts in parentheses protesting great chat. I was introduced to him by Jack Boland. I hadn't realized he was now with the sun. This is from Midtown Gord. Are you with the Toronto Sun? I am no, I'm not with the Toronto Sun.

I'm, I was there for 19 months. It was great. Jack Boland, yes, a photographer who, uh, well known throughout the city. And it was great meeting, um, Midtown Gord. I didn't know that was his nickname. So, you know, and he's the guy, the big beard. Yes. Giant beard, a great guy. Uh, we chatted for about, I don't know, 15 minutes or so outside Queens park. And it was, um, during my time with, with the Toronto sun. You won't, if you're looking for Midtown Gourd, I'm just going to let you know,

Scott, just go to a Lee Aaron concert. This man won't miss Lee Aaron. It doesn't matter if Lee Aaron's playing like a bowling alley, Midtown Gourd will be there. So if you're looking for Midtown Gourd, that's where you're going to find him. I think Jack would help me as well, try to track him down if I had to. Is Jack a metalhead? I don't know Jack. Jack is, no, I wouldn't describe him as a metalhead. I just know him as one of my pillars of support over the last couple of years

because while I was at the Sun, we basically worked together almost every day. And he, one day, a couple of years ago, said, hey, you want to play hockey? And I hadn't played in four and a half years because I just, I wasn't mentally in that space. And he got me back into hockey. So, and how's that going for you? Uh, does it feel good to get out there?

If the, I don't know, the, the people, I was going to say the guys, but you know, there could be women on your team. Come on, uh, the guys and, and, and you know sweat it out and have a have a You know a great great night of hockey. How's that working out for you? I just played last night Until about 11 p.m.. And it was for an hour. It's the usual skate. I'm not injured So that's good, and it's one of three games a week and honestly it's done Wonders I would say for for just my mental head space. Because if I didn't have that, I don't know where I would be.

It's really- Well, you need a coping mechanism. Absolutely, a coping mechanism, and just a way of dealing with everything. Well, we're gonna get into it. I would say that playing hockey three times a week, much better coping mechanism than heroin, for example. Much better for you.

I can't say I've ever considered or tried that hockey's good enough gets the blood going okay good for you do you play with any rock stars everything you know are there any celebrities on your hockey team to me you're the celebrity no no they're all celebrities I mean it's anyone anyone who's you know reached a certain age who's still playing hockey at, you know, say, uh, you know, there's a, there's one of our players on Sunday who's 76 and we play at nine o'clock in the morning. And every time my alarm goes off on Sunday, I think I can't, I can't not go because that guy's 76 and he's our goalie and he's gonna be there So and goalies are very as I know from from my men's league back in the day the beer league Goalies are everything right? Like you need if you don't have that goalie the game's gonna suck. Absolutely. Absolutely They are the essential pillar of

Of the games they're the Raymond's are house kids. They're the Ridley funeral home of hockey players There are pillars of the team. You gotta have that goalie here. Yes, God stick stick with me. I'm going to teach you a few tricks here. Okay. So let's go back before we, uh, I'm going to read a question from Hamilton Mike that's going to introduce the real talk here, but when did you realize in your life, Scott, that you wanted to be in news media? Like, like, did you have this epiphany in high school? When did you realize this was the career for you? I think I was about 14. Okay. Um, might might have been 13 I can't exactly say the time but for some reason I grew up in Montreal and CTV in Montreal at the time was CFCF. CFCF was anchored by Bill Hoagland and we had Channel 12 on all the time, Pulse News it was called, and Bill Hoagland was the anchor forever.

And I just, I could not stop watching Bill. And one day I just decided I wanna be Bill Hoagland. I wanna do that. Right, and so not long after that I had a paper route delivering the Montreal Gazetteette and at the time inside the newspaper there were always little world briefs, little snippets from around the world. There were maybe two or three sentences. I would basically take one of those world briefs or a few of them and pretend that I

was an anchor and I would look down at them and try to remember what the three sentences were and then look up and say them like Bill Hoagland. So it was way back. Well, this is like many a hockey play-by-play person has started by, you know, calling fictional games in their backyard or their basement or whatever. Like, so you're just playing the role of anchor. Right, exactly. That's when it started. I was about 14 years old and those memories stick with you. They don't just go away. And then eventually I got to work with Bill and it was just completely just awe-inspiring to meet him.

And then I worked with his son who was a fantastic editor and sound person. And yeah, it kind of went full circle there. What brings you to Toronto? I was in Montreal with CTV for about five years and then then CTV started up a news channel and a couple of years into the existence of news channel that was about 97. A couple of years into News Channel's lifespan, I figured, well, I'll try my hand at anchoring and I'll fill in on Christmas once and see how it goes. And it went okay, and then that sort of led to

moving to Toronto and taking on a part-time anchor. Well, it sounds to me like you were playing in Springfield and then the capital city tapped you on the shoulder and says you're getting the call, right? I still belonged in Springfield. Is that because you haven't, I just had a guest, Stu Stone, and we went on a tangent where he disclosed to me this imposter syndrome that he had because he's,

you know, he's like, he feels like he's a bit of an imposter in all the wonderful things he's done with his career. But you must have felt like you belong in the big smoke here. Like, like, where does News Channel come out of? Toronto? That's where I belong. Uh, you know what? It probably took me about a half a decade to really feel comfortable in the role. Like for the first couple of years, I thought, oh my goodness, what am I doing? I mean, this is, this is just not, it's not working out. Right. And I just, you just keep at it.

And you know, I think about five years in, I thought, okay, I, I think I'm sort of getting the hang of this. Have you always worked for CTV? Like, like did you, did you, was your first media job at CFCF? No, no. Um, my first job was actually here in Toronto, um, which was... That's a long drive for you. Well, it was, uh, I finished school and I had already had a sort of great relationship with the CBC because of internships and, and a summer job

that I had here in Toronto. And so as soon as I graduated, I think about four days later, I started in Toronto working at the National News World at the time. Well, that's pretty good to graduate and then 40 days later be working there. That's a pretty sweet happening. It was, it was literally four days and, and, and I moved here. And I, I, you know, for a while I was, because I was making the big switch from Montreal to Toronto. Yeah. I didn't know anything about the city really. And, uh, you know, for a while I was living at Neil Wysick, you know, the,

the Ryerson student housing, right? I was, I know where, whereabouts it is. Yeah. Yeah. I was, I was living there for a couple of months before I could find a place to live. And that was my first job. I did that for about four years here in Toronto. And then I started anchoring locally here. But because I didn't know the city,

the way somebody who was born here does, I thought, you know, it'd be better if I go back to Montreal and do local reporting there because I know the city. Like you know, to pronounce strong as strong and not Stracken or something like that. I remember once I said Etobicoke. Yeah, okay. That's a, I said Etobicoke and the anchor leaned into me on that one. And I was like, I moved here like five minutes ago. Like that says Etobicoke.

You know, you're right. You go, you know, you don't know these little things that you just know from osmosis, having lived here, all these, these little quirks and quirks. I always bring up strong because you're now an FOTM, Scott, friend of Toronto Mike. So welcome to that esteemed fraternity. But another FOTM is Al Strachan who was on

hockey night in Canada for many years. Absolutely. And it's spelled like, you know, I bike Strawn all the time when you go to Trinity Bellwoods or whatever from the, from the waterfront trail. So I'm on Strawn all the time. Most L-Tron Tony has no Strawn, but it's

spelled the same way. Like, so this whole like Strachan versus Strawn, you have to be Expedina versus Spadina. There are a million of these things. You gotta be well-versed in Toronto to speak the language. Yeah, absolutely. I learned that lesson pretty quickly at CBLT, working with, I mean, there was some-

Yeah, tell me who you were, because that was my, I watched a lot of CBLT news. Tell me who you were. CBLT, that was, it was a great training ground. I have this great memory of following around Havard Gould, who was at Queens Park at the time. Well, he was at Queens Park forever. And I just sort of followed him for a day.

And he gave me a lot of great tips on how to build a story, how to craft a story, what a clip is, how long it should be. Steve Paikin was there, which, I mean, it was practically my co-host on this program, Steve Paikin. He was honestly, everyone at CBLT was nice, everyone, okay? Steve Paikin was golden. And he gave me one bit of advice. He said he was, he knew I was very new

at reporting and he said, listen, when you go out and you're doing your story and you're talking to people, always do an on camera. Even if you don't use it in editing, always do an on camera. And that just stayed with me. It was just the whole practice of being on camera and being comfortable and- That's a great tip, you know?

I think- It was fantastic. Picking more than just a pretty face. I a great tip, you know, it was fantastic. Picking more than just a pretty face. I'm learning this now. Yep. Yep. Okay. And drop any more names you want to drop from these years you spent at CBLT when you first came here. Bill Cameron. Oh, I loved Bill Cameron.

Shout out to Ridley Funeral Home, lost him far too soon, but what a great broadcaster. Great person as well. I mean, he came over over from at the time was the Journal and then it switched to primetime news. He came over from the Journal and he was the anchor for a couple of years something like that. And again just great advice somebody to look up up to. It was a great experience working with that. See, taken from as far too soon,

but there was a guy I would have loved to have got Bill Cameron on Toronto Mic'd. Like I'm happy to have Scott Laurie on Toronto Mic'd, but I would love to have had that manager. You'd be better off with Bill. He was fantastic. And I was only a medium or something, but what were you gonna say?

I was only at CBLT for a, for I started July, uh, a long time ago and, uh, non-committal on those days. Yeah. July, a long time ago. And, and I left I think in October because you know, my boss at, at the national same year, same year, four months or something. Yeah. And how could I met math? Actually? No, it was, it was not four months later. It was, it was the next year. So I was there for, you know, under two years. Okay. And then they said, well, we've, we've got a local, you know, local reporting job in, in Montreal, if you want. Absolutely. You know,

chance to go home. Chance to go home. Okay. so how do you end up at CTV in many regards? You know, this is your dream job to be at CTV. Like, I'm going to guess this and you're going to tell me if I'm out to lunch. But I'm thinking when you visualize your dream gig, you want to be, you know, taking over for Lloyd Robertson. Am I close there? Like Lloyd's got the gig. Absolutely. But I never thought that at all. I mean, I was very happy doing local news in Montreal.

It was great. It was, you get to do a story a day. It's a lot of practice. You get to deepen your connection to the community. And out of the blue, I think CTV knew they were expanding because they had all these specialty channels that they were creating and the head of CTV news reached out and then Rosemary Thompson who was the Montreal bureau chief at the time, she reached out and I ended up making the switch

from CBC, local, to CTV National. Right. So I was in the same building as Pulse News, as CFCF, CTV Montreal, but I didn't actually work for them. I was working for the national news. Okay, and so what year is it when you, yeah, you start your CTV news career? That was 95.

95. Okay. Let me ask you this. Were you an Expose fan? Baseball and I don't really get along. Shout out to Leslie Taylor and Brian Gerstein and all these Expose fanatics that are listening, Steve Cole. You don't have to be a baseball fan.

I'm only cause I just read the other day you don't have to be a baseball fan. Only because I just read the other day they're gonna make a documentary for Netflix about the Expos leaving Montreal. And I was just curious if you were one of those diehard Expos fans who had their heart broken. Well, not only that, not only are they planning that documentary,

but there's always this undercurrent of pressure and hope that can the Expos come back, right? It's just one of those, it's one of those stories that never goes away because Montrealers have that emotional connection to the team and they'd love it to come back, kind of like the Nordiques in Quebec, but you know, is that gonna happen?

I don't know. No, I don't know either. Because I'm born and raised in Toronto, I've never had a team I loved ripped from me. Like I can only imagine. And I have these conversations with people be like, Oh, I was a diehard Jets fan. And then they went, where do they go at Atlanta? No, Phoenix, right? They went to Phoenix.

I got to keep track. Atlanta came back. That's right. Okay. So I was an Expose guy. I was a Nordic fan like that. Grizzlies fan, right? In Vancouver, but Toronto, like, you know, we've lost franchises

that nobody cared about. Like we, you know, we didn't lose our Raptors or our blue J's or, uh, you know, definitely didn't lose our Toronto Maple Leafs. And that's not going to happen anytime soon. I know that would be, that would be quite the story to cover. Okay. So now we've got you in Toronto. I'm going to play a clip just a minute here to hear like, how did Scott

Laurie sound? Oh, jeez. And by the way, it was called, did they rebranded at some point? It was called News Channel. Is it still like, but is it Newsnet? And why do I think it has multiple names? Well, TV news channel. Originally, if memory serves me correctly, I believe it was News One at first, then it was news net news net, then it was news channel. Is that what it is today? News channel? I believe yes, it is. Okay.

It's CTV. I'm asking you the tough questions here. Scott. Okay. So one, oh, even less than a minute here of Scott on CTV News Channel, down to the wire, U.S. lawmakers prepare to vote on a historic health care bill. A third deadly avalanche in a week in British Columbia. Two are dead. And all good things must come to an end. Saying goodbye to the 2010 Paralympic Games.

This is CTV News Weekends. Hello and thanks for joining us. I'm Scott Laurie, our top story right now. The 2010 Paralympic Games are about to come to a close, but before they do, Canada has won another gold. Brian McKeever. All right. 2010 here. Uh, is it difficult for you to listen to this?

Wow. That, uh, that's a way, that's a long time ago. 14 years ago. That's, uh, I can't remember that specific day, but I remember the games. Definitely. I was, I think at that time I was covering, I was doing weekend anchoring, but also we had an Olympic desk at the time because of Vancouver, obviously. Yesterday was the anniversary of Sidney Crosby's Golden

Goal, which was the last day of the games, and that's the way, you know, if you were gonna write the story of, you know, us hosting the Olympics in 2010, you write it with Crosby scoring in overtime to win gold. With an assist from Jerome Ginla. Iggy! Yeah. Oh yeah. You know, his kid's good.

Ginla's got a kid, apparently. Yeah, it just, you know, everything's a junior now. This is the future of sports. Everyone, you know, Bo Bichette and Vlad Guerrero, they're all gonna be juniors, you know. We've got Max Domi on the Leafs, right? Like it's all gonna be juniors, I digress here. But yeah, so we, that's almost exactly Domi on the leafs, right? Like it's all going to be juniors. I digress here, but yes.

So we almost that's almost exactly. That means it's almost exactly 14 years ago because the Paralympic games come right after the, the Olympics in the host city. But I know that when I mentioned at a clip, you know, you said it's been a while since you watched and then maybe we should cut right to it. How's this?

How are we going to do it? Because this is going to be some real talk here. I really want to hear your story and understand your story. But let me just tell you that no matter what happens in the next little bit, you're not leaving here without a palma pasta lasagna. It's in my freezer right now. I know you moved the box and you're like, that's awfully light. There's no lasagna in there.

It's in my freezer. I'm going to load this up before you leave here, Scott. So you're getting a palma pasta lasagna. Excellent. Thank you very my freezer. I'm going to load this up before you leave here, Scott. So you're getting a Palma Pasta lasagna. Excellent. Thank you very much. Oh, listen, I'm not done yet. I feel like Monty Hall here. Fresh craft beer from Great Lakes Brewery is heading your way to, that's just the most

delicious craft beer in this city and we love Great Lakes. So they've sent over the beer for you. Palma Pasta sent over the lasagna. Ridley Funeral Home. They don't want to see you anytime soon, Scott, but they did send over a measuring tape for you. Palma Pasta sent over the lasagna. Ridley Funeral Home, they don't want to see anytime soon, Scott, but they did send over a measuring tape for you. Might come in handy if you got to insert a joke here. If you have to measure anything, that's courtesy of Ridley Funeral Home. A couple of pieces of advice, and then I'm going to read a note from Hamilton

Mike, and then we're going to get into it because there's a date, March 24, 2018, which was almost exactly six years ago that you were fired and we're going to get into this. But let me just let everybody know whether you manage your own financial investments or you have a person who does that for you. There are best practices and great advice in the Advantage Investor podcast from Raymond James Canada. So subscribe to the Advantage Investor podcast. And Scott, if you or anyone listening has a drawer full of cables, you got old devices,

I don't know, laptops from 2004 that are never gonna be used again. You got any of that junk in your house? No, yes? I do not, No. I might have some cables but a laptop? No. You don't have anything collecting dust in the corner. Okay, but for those who do, and even for your cables, Scott, if you go to RecycleMyElectronics.ca and you put in your postal code, EPRA is like, hey,

there's a place we accredited near you where they will properly recycle that and then it won't, the chemicals won't end up in our landfill. So we've got you taken care of, lasagna, beer, measuring tape, best practices. Hamilton Mike writes in when he heard that you were coming on. He says, I just read his Medium post, probably the most egregious case and example of Bell's Let's Talk being complete corporate horse shit. So that's Hamilton Mike who wrote that. But I thought that would be our gateway. Would you mind sharing the story?

I read, I'm going to read the first lines from what you wrote and then we're just going to chat about this. You wrote Scott, I want my name back. What happened to me in the CTV national newsroom at Bell Media in 2018 was an injustice. For six years I have lived with this. I have been tarnished with an unfair public impression that I am a workplace risk. Because of the continuing and overwhelming cost to me on my career, my mental health, my personal relationships, my quality of life and my name, I cannot be silent anymore.

What was done to me must be known." Okay. Now, I'm going to shut up because I want to hear from you, Scott. Set the table for us here and share with us what happened to you at the CTV National back in 2018? Well, first off, I'm glad that Hamilton Mike read the post. And I'm sure many others who are curious may wanna read it as well. I mean, all I can say is that I was in that post,

just being as upfront and honest as possible on, you know, I had a front row seat to what happened. You know, nobody had a worse, better seat than me. And I saw everything happen in real time and it was a complete injustice. And why do I want my name cleared? It's it's been damaged, period. And anyone who would have this kind of experience would want to do the same thing. If you can't rise up and defend your name, what can you do? And so that's why I wrote that.

Why did it take six years? Is it just you now feel brave enough to share your story? I'm just curious, because it's been six long years for you. Why six years? Number one, it is absolutely never, ever, ever too late to call out injustice, ever. Six years, 60 years, doesn't matter. Number two, again, this is having an effect on me every single day. And why did I, you know, it took me about six weeks to write that.

And, you know, the idea came from a friend of mine from high school who said, you know, maybe you should, maybe you should write something. And why, why did it take me six weeks to write? Because I had to think about everything that happened, like what, what do I want to say? How do I want to say it? What, what, what am I trying to convey here? And again, it is, it is about the injustice and it continues.

What happened six weeks ago? Well, six weeks ago, I had a fantastic job interview. Fantastic. It was about 45 minutes. You know, sometimes you have a conversation with somebody, whether it's a job interview or just a conversation and you feel like, yeah, you know, sometimes you, you have a conversation with somebody, you know, whether it's a job interview or just a conversation and, and you, you feel like, yeah, you know what, I think there was a connection there. I really think, I really think that's going to work. And. You know, after the, after the job interview, it was, you know, the usual, you know, we'll get back to you with next steps and all that.

And, um, and then I heard nothing. I heard absolutely. I heard absolutely nothing. And it's, it's not as if I have, you know, um, a bad resume. It's not as if I don't have any skills. I mean, I, I was at CTV for 23 years. I was at the Toronto sun for 19 months. I was at the Ontario government very recently for a short amount of time. I mean, it's, I have absolute skills, but six weeks ago, after a great job interview, all of a sudden it was crickets. And the problem is that since last summer that has happened five times. Five interviews, five panels, five great connections,

crickets and there's only one reason why. People have this mistaken impression of who I am and it's completely false. So I had to put my side of the story out there my side of the story You know sure there are gonna be people there are always people who are going to disagree There are always people who are gonna say well, wait a second, you know, that's that's not my reading of what happened but I had a front-row seat to that I saw what everyone did and

That's the truth Well, you don't look again my approach to this and actually it's interesting. This is belt media only because years ago there was a news talk, 10, 10 reporter named Amber Giro and she wanted to share her story about racism that she experienced in the 10, 10 newsroom. So she was working at this is back when they had a newsroom at 10 10. They don't have one anymore, but that's a whole different conversation. But Amber came over, it was episode one 15 if people want to hear and she shared her story and I just did a lot of listening. And then when I had, you know, questions about

the narrative and stuff, I asked my questions, which I will do here now. But you, Scott, you're telling your story. You're Scott, you were there. I wasn't there. I'm very interested in walking through this because, you know, you lost your dream job at the CTV national news there. And I'm, maybe you can start to share the story of that you shared on your medium post there. And then when I have questions, I'll, I'll pipe in, but just so people listening can understand, like, like, why is there, and I'm going to use this terminology. Why might there be like a bit of a, like, I guess a stink on you? Like, it's like people think, oh, don't hire Scott Laurie. It's trouble because of what went down in 2018. Like share your truth now. Best you can and then I'll try to stay out of your way until I have questions. Okay. So strangely enough, this goes all the way back to about, um, August of 2017 and, um, 2017, yeah.

Um, we were at the time the Invictus games were going on. Okay. They were Invictus games here in Toronto. Big deal. Big production. TSN. Prince Harry. Yes. Prince Harry, the romance, everything. It was just big news on every, it was a sporting event. It was a, it was a people magazine event. It was everything. And, you know, we, we had regular updates on, on, um, the Invictus games.

Right. So one day, um, we were doing a live hit with Brian Williams from TSN, amazing broadcaster. And the time Scott, as we talk now is 10, 19 Eastern. Exactly. So we're doing a live hit with Brian Williams. And honestly, it was the, for that entire hour, we started at six and we were going until eight, which was our usual run.

And from between six and six forty two, and I'm not making that up, it was between six and six forty two, we made six production errors, just errors, right? Things that didn't go well and it really came to a head during the Brian Williams interview. We were interviewing, I think it was downtown in Nathan Phillips Square and it was just, it was a gong show. It was almost like, wow, CTV can't do television anymore.

That's- It's like when you were watching Rodgers 10 back in the day and youngsters were cutting their teeth in how to put together a production. Yeah. So the show is just a disaster and I was not happy and I emailed one of the senior producers saying we should take more pride in what we're doing. And, and they asked me what's going on. I said, well, look at the tape tomorrow.

And they did. And then they had a conversation with the producer and the producer did not like me after that, um, because I called out her. You escalated, uh, this is a woman, this producer, right? Right. Not the gender matters, but just a genderizer. So, so they basically, uh, we took, uh, they didn't like that you escalated to like a boss, that they didn't do a good job on this live hit. Oh, but it was terrible. It was, I remember at

eight o'clock when we finished that run of live news and I walked into the newsroom, everyone asked me, what happened at six? I was like, I don't know. I just don't know but you know because I called out somebody's work Right. They were then Mad at me. They were just they were just mad at me. And so that was all that was in August. Okay, okay August 2017 right. I forget the date exactly but it was it was August. Excuse me Then a couple of months later, you know one day we're in the newsroom, we're covering a story, it was a Sunday evening, we're covering a story about a police news release that went out from TPS basically saying, hey, we're looking for this woman who ran this cosmetic,

not cosmetic surgery, but cosmetic procedure clinic in the basement of her home. Like Botox injections. And all manner of things. Fillers. Right, and so the police were looking for the woman who ran this clinic. And the reason why is because somebody

who went to the clinic, or a couple of people who went to the clinic ended up having to go to the hospital because of work they had done in this basement clinic. I think it was called Miss Kitty or something like that. It was the kind of story that people would click on because it was so crazy. So we did this story. The producer of that newscast at the time was the same one who I had called out. And just so we know as we go through, you're intentionally not naming anyone, which is fine. So, okay, just to clear that up because people are going like, who is this producer? But you don't want to name these producers, is that right? Yeah, exactly and because of because of the adjudication that happened they have anonymity, okay So You know miss kitty the miss kitty story. They're looking for this person

They need to arrest them because of you know, these people getting harmed after going to her You going for a butt lift you want to make sure that that's gonna be a proper safe job, right? And and you don't end up in emergency after. Well, these people ended up in emergency. So after the show was done, we all came into the newsroom and I said, you know, that was a great show. It's a good thing we got that Miss Kitty story in there because, you know, it's the kind of thing, again, that people would click on and be interested in. And there were five of us sort of chatting around the pod we're getting ready to go home probably in about 10-15 minutes right and the producer who's already mad

at me because I called out you know August 2017 yeah right so now we're in October and and the the producer looked at me and said, yeah, Miss Kitty, that's probably where Scott got his lips done. Whoa. Whoa. Right. And in my mind, that's what I said. Yeah. And my initial reaction was, these are my natural lips.

May I ask you to just racially identify this producer? Is this a white woman? Or is that too much? It's your call on this one, but I'm just curious. Is this a white woman? Or is that too much? It's your call on this one, but I'm just curious, is this a white woman? I would technically be identifying them if I do that. Then don't do anything that'll get you in trouble here. But I can tell the listenership, Scott, if you don't know,

because how would you know? It's not part of his story, but you are a black man. Yeah, there you go. And so my initial reaction when I heard that was like, did I just hear that? Yeah. That's insane. And I just said, these are my natural lips.

And there were like four other people around there. And it was kind of like one of those moments where everyone goes silent. And then we all just- Because of how inappropriate that is. Right, and then we all just- Because of how inappropriate that is. Right. And then we all just went away and I went home and, and I was, I was just, I was broiling, I was just stewing over this.

I was, did I really hear that? And, and no one said anything. Right. It's just, Oh, an inappropriate racist joke. And no one said anything. So I went home and thought about it. And the next day I came in and I went up to three different people at work and I said,

hey, somebody said this to me yesterday. What do you think? And they were like, oh, that's racist. And then I went to the boss and I said, this happened to me. And they were shocked. Their reaction was your reaction. Well, it's because it sounds very racist to me to make a con, it's almost like those racial caricatures

you would back in the day with a big lipped person eating watermelon, like this is racist. Exactly. And that's basically what I was subject to. And a lot of people don't know that. They have no clue that that happens, right? They just know, oh, Scott's got this major stink around him. No, there was a whole series of events that led up to this.

And that was the racist remark that was made in the newsroom. And I complained and this person got in trouble and I was so mad about it that I insisted, I do not want to work with this producer again. I do not. And it took me three weeks to convince my bosses to move this person. Originally it was, well, she apologized. No, no, no, no. I don't want to, you know, I have, I have grown up my entire life, you know, facing remarks like that, right? From the time that I was in Montreal, growing up in, you know,

you know, an English guy in a totally French neighborhood, I have heard everything and at a certain point it's almost like the comment that just broke my tolerance and it was like no, I am not going to sit on a CTV news anchor desk and have a producer in my ear who I know can stoop to that level and say something like that. And so I insisted that I did not want to work with them anymore and it took three weeks for them to finally move her. And it was a whole song and dance. I mean they tried to move me and I said, well, I'm not going to be inconvenienced because of somebody else's-

Yeah, you shouldn't be punished for this. Right. I'm not going to be inconvenienced because of somebody else's racism. I'm not going to move, you move them. Which they did. Well, about three days after they got moved, a bunch of people in the newsroom went out for a beer. Because everybody was talking about this, like nobody knew exactly what happened, but

they just knew, well, something happened between Scott and the... Anyone who's worked in any off, forget about newsroom or any other office, okay, if it was in front of colleagues that she made the comment about your lips, this producer, and therefore you know everybody is sharing this story immediately through either instant messenger or let's go for a coffee, you won't believe what happened today. I really don't know. Well, I know. Okay, Scott, it spreads pretty quickly.

I don't know what the conversations were, but what I do know is that a group of people went out for beer about three or four days after the producer was finally moved. Right. And the next day, one of my friends in the newsroom phoned me, which he never does. He phoned me and he said, hey, listen, I don't know what you did, but a whole bunch of the producer's friends in the newsroom said at beer yesterday that they're going to get you. Right? They actually told him that they were going to get me. And they did.

Like revenge essentially. Yes, retribution because I complained about a racist remark. I mean, that's what it boils down to. And nobody actually knows all of that. And that's why I spelled it out in what I wrote on, on media. And I'll speak, uh, cause I'm not a black man. Uh, I will never know what it's like to live life as a black man, but I absolutely know how to listen and other people tell me a story. I mean, I've heard, I've heard people who have been pulled over for DWB. Okay. I'm never going to get pulled over for DWB, but I've heard from people who've shared me these stories with me

So I'm here to learn but in your lifetime you you're bringing baggage with you because it sounds like Perry You've experienced racism in your lifetime because you're a black man and you have that baggage with you So now that you're in this dream job a very professional setting right the CTV newsroom to have like a very professional setting, right? The CTV newsroom to have like a bigoted statement like that thrown at you by this producer. It's, it's not something you can laugh off and just, uh, you know, go up like, yeah, like that, that's like, say sorry and we'll move on. Like this is, this is, I just want to emphasize the significance of how this would affect you to experience this racism in the newsroom in 2017. Yes, exactly. And I was measured in how I dealt with it.

It took me 24 hours to figure out, you know what, I am going to go to the boss and say something. And then I was just not happy with the apology. It was just, no, no, I'm not, again, as I said before, I was not gonna have somebody in my ear giving me editorial direction during the show, every day for three hours, who I know can say something like that.

And their friends wanted to get me. So so okay I had questions about this so so essentially this producer we're not naming who made these comments about your lips there she's she's got this I want to call it a click only because I had read pieces about when Lisa LaFlamme was let go there were pieces suggesting that there was a click and I'm wondering like so there's almost, is that a, would you say that's an appropriate term? Like a consortium of colleagues who were going to, you know, stand up for their friend who had been, you know, slighted by you

and get you. Well, that's exactly what happened. I think she was moved, you know, November the 22nd, my friend called me the next day, her friends went to the boss to complain about me about four days later, maybe five days. And apparently this was not retribution, right? Of course it was. And what's stunning is that no one recognized that. Absolutely no one recognized that this was retribution. Especially, especially, and I didn't know this until much further on in the process, but one of the people who came forward to complain about me was the same producer

who made the racist remark. I mean, if that doesn't raise red flags with managers, I don't know what would. So I'm curious, again, I wasn't there, but you were there, Scott, but you got this, well call this person deep throat, okay? You got the call from inside the room that they're conspiring against you.

Was that the message you received? So this ally of yours in the newsroom was giving you a heads up that this group of people were upset about what happened to the producer friend and they were going to get retribution and get revenge on you and then you're saying it was only days later that complaints were levied about you which will obviously I'm gonna have to ask you soon what these complaints were but complaints were levied against you and one of the complainers was the very producer who was had her, you

know, her projects aligned not to work with you because she had made a insensitive, racist remark. Am I right? Exactly. Okay. Correct me if I'm ever wrong. I'm sorry. I'll get this right. So yeah, they came forward. I didn't know they had come forward. I was totally unaware. I mean, this was, you know, the beginning of December, January rolls around and you know, my friend ally in the newsroom, deep throat, right? At the beginning of January of 2018, right? Weeks have gone by, right? Since he, he warned me, right? Weeks have gone by. and I remember sending him an email one day,

just randomly saying, hey, you know, whatever happened to this group that was out to get me? And he wrote back, I guess that blew over, right? And that was January. What I didn't know is that at the time there was an investigation going on into me, right? It's because of these allegations against you. Right and it started in it started in December, it rolled into January, it rolled into February, it went on for three months. They they did an investigation for three months and yes sorry I'm sorry for interrupting. It is now a good time though to Share with us. What were these claims that they were making against you?

Because it's so how many so how many people made these claims and what were these claims about you? two people came forward initially in December Then two other people came forward in January. But again, I was unaware of that until much later on. And may I ask, like, so that's four different individuals who are going to make claims against you, which will be revealed in a moment, I suppose, but these four people, are they all part of this clique that Deep Throat was warning you about or at least tied to that click? Well, I don't know if he knew exactly the extent of the click or the group,

but he knew some of them, absolutely. And their basic claims were that I was harassing them by sending them messages on Facebook that they deemed inappropriate. They were they thought it was harassment and one of them said it bordered on stalking, which I know stalking is a criminal offense to you know, last time I checked. And yeah, that that's that's basically what their claims were. Okay, so four different women said that you were, I don't know, inappropriately messaging them through Facebook or am I getting that right?

Yes. Okay. I mean, I have to ask the obvious question, but like, were you sending messages like, your ass looks great in that skirt today? Is that the kind of stuff? Like, I know, I'm asking, I have no idea. I wasn't there. No, no, no. And, and put it to you this way. Yeah. Um, just,

just so that that we're clear on this, the, the investigator who was taking in the, the complaints, right? They look, the investigator looked into it for three months and at the end of three months she wrote, you know, this is all in my medium post, but she wrote a two and a half page email to her boss, you know, someone in Bell. It's not like a Bell media person. This is Bell. And the two and a half page email, basically the conclusion was it's not harassment. It's not vexatious. The women do find it harassing.

So at the end, it was something like, maybe we send them on a course or something like that. Sensitivity training. Right, right. That was her conclusion. And she sent that email on March. Did she say whether you should be fired or not? Like, was there any commentary from this investigator?

And this is an independent investigator? Is this like a Bell person investigating these allegations? This is somebody inside Bell. But did they make any suggestions, like any conclusions regarding, like, whether you should keep your job or not? Their conclusion was that I should not be fired. I mean, again, their conclusion was that it wasn't harassment and wasn't vexatious.

I have to Google vexatious, Scott. I'm sorry. I, I, at the time I did as well, just to be, just to be clear on it. But, um, you know, I was again, shocked to learn that that email even existed because it took, you know, a couple of years before we had that document. Okay. I'm going to read though for people, it's dumb as I am. Okay. So causing or tending to cause annoyance, frustration or worry. So this investigation said it's not vexation. So it's not

causing or tending to cause annoyance, frustration or worry. Just throwing it out there. Okay. So that's a good thing she wrote there for you. Right, and she wrote it on March the 8th. This is roughly three months after the people come forward. So it's not as if they looked into it for five days or five hours and came up with a conclusion. She read pages and pages of Facebook messages, and again, this was her conclusion to her boss on March the 8th yet on March the 22nd I met her for the first

time okay I'm an investigator yeah okay so her conclusion to her boss has already been made she needs it right she meets me on the 22nd. She changes her mind the next day for whatever reason and suddenly I get dismissed the next day. So you're fired on March 24th and you meet the investigator on March 22nd and you you did you get a copy of this? Report or whatever was submitted to I did not know that existed until about a year and so later Okay, it's got very interesting. Okay. Did you ever get a copy of this? Did you ever see what was written on March 8th? Because March 8th 2018 is when this investigator submits her conclusions, Right, I only knew that

document existed in April of 2019 in the middle of the adjudication because we asked for documentation and you know her one her one official email to her boss basically cleared me. Exonerated you and then again said it was not nothing vexatious and did not constitute harassment and her conclusion at that time it may March 8 is that you should not lose your job but then you're telling me you actually met with this investigator on March 22nd did you meet like one-on-one one-on-one for about three hours and it was yeah two until 5 5 PM. And I outlined to her, because she said, she told me, two people have come forward

and this is what they're claiming. And just give me your version of events. And I gave her my version of events. And as soon as I heard the names, I thought about what my ally told me that deep throat, right? Somebody's going to quote unquote, get you. And it matched up.

It was, and I said, Hey, this is there. They're basically seeking retribution because I made a racist or a complaint about a racist remark. Now hindsight being 2020 and this for all I know, this is haunting you. And thank goodness you have the hockey every three weeks. Cause we're going to find out how this has affected every three days, every three, every three days, every three. I meant every week you play three times a week.

Right. So every, every three weeks you need more than that. But do you now look back and say, man, I shouldn't have met with this investigator alone. Does any part of you say you wish you had a, I shouldn't have met with this investigator alone. Does any part of you say you wish you had a, I don't know, a lawyer or some kind of representative present? I just feel like whatever happened in that March 22nd interview, you one-on-one with this investigator, she changed her mind. And I mean, it sounds like after that meeting, she's like, we should dismiss this guy. Like they deemed you a liability somehow. I don't. It's my speculation.

I really don't know how she changed her mind. And at the end of three hours, she actually said to me, it was about five minutes to five on that Thursday. And she said to me, well, thanks Scott for coming in on your day off and meeting with me. And actually there was one other person there. It was from corporate security. Um, which I found it odd that they need somebody from security there.

I mean, it's not like, maybe that's like, uh, standard practice. Yeah. I don't think it was a Scott thing. Um, so at the end of the three hours, she, she said to me, you know, you've, you've given me a lot of homework to do, right? Because of, because of what I, I basically told her what I just told you, Hey, this is about retribution for me making a complaint not that long ago. And this is why all of a sudden you have these people coming forward. And I got the

impression that she was going to look into it, right? I gave her the name of my friend who told me, hey, somebody's out to get you. And I don't know what they're going to do, but they're planning something. I was under the impression she's going to circle back to the ally in the newsroom. She's going to look into the history between myself and the producer who made the racist remark. None of that was done. It was basically all of a sudden the next day things just switched and I have absolutely no idea why. Okay.

For a little context here, if we look back to six years ago, this is pretty hot and heavy Me Too era stuff. Like this is- Stig Brodersen Completely. Absolutely. It was dominant. Robert Leonard Right. Yeah. Absolutely. Well, yeah, of course, Harvey Weinstein and then you had, well, Kevin Spacey. I mean, there was a whack of- Stig Brodersen Patrick Brown. Robert Leonard Yeah. Patrick Brown. Absolutely. You're right. Absolutely. And even in America,

you had a, whoever Matt Stone, I'm getting these names mixed up now. So maybe I'll stop talking to the camera. That's the guy. Okay. There's a stone out there somewhere, but I'm seeing, but this is where conflation happens is I'm going to get back to conflation later when it talks to about all these interviews you've had lately where it sounds like it's going good in the interview and suddenly cricket. So we'll get back to that and I'll tell you my conflation theory. But they let you go on March 24th, 2018 in this me too era after whatever you said on March 22nd and then whatever this investigator did after that. So did the quick question I have is do they sever you fairly? Like they do they properly sever you for your time spent working for the company?

Financially? No. Okay, so now I had a guy, I just, so you know, there's a guy named Mike Stafford who has been here, who worked 20 years for Chorus, and then he actually, on an internal chat, he used the Peasler for people of South Asian descent. And he was doing it in a way that was, he was trying to say Doug Ford using that in this joke internally. Bottom line is he didn't use asterisks like he used, he spelled out this piece slur and he was fired and he got $0 and zero cents from chorus from his 20 years. And he now has a lawyer actually thanks to his appearance on this podcast,

which is a whole different story, but are they saying you were fired with cause? Yes. Absolutely. That sucks, man. And what doesn't make sense is that why would you have an investigator do three months of work, right? You know, you put in all this time talking to everyone, and then you make a conclusion that basically says, hey, it's not what we think it is. It's not harassment. And then within 24 hours, it changed. It just changed for whatever reason.

Yeah, I'm just processing it all right now. Because even though I read what you wrote a medium and people can go read the words that took you what six weeks to write, right? So there's your chance to edit and make sure you're you're being clear where now, you know, I'm not going to edit this, Scott. So it's like now you're having this live conversation. So people should read the the medium article that you wrote, which is easy to find Hamilton Mike found it right away. But I'm still processing this. So no, like, did you fight for severance? Were you able to extract what was owed to you after having so many years working for CTV News?

Um, my, the, the first thing I did, um, after this happened, well, I'm, I was in shock. I mean it just it didn't make sense. I'm all I was thinking was I made a complaint about a Racist remark right and at the end of the entire process. I lost my job Had I not made a complaint I would probably still be there period That's crazy. It's crazy too when you hear it lined up like that, but what's happening, I'm speculating here, is HR is not tying these two events together. They're treating them as two mutually exclusive events. You would not have to be that much of a... You don't have to be that gifted to really realize that, man, if all these people come forward

all of a sudden, including the producer who made the racist remark, you don't have to be a genius to figure that out. I'm with you. Yeah. Now, you don't need to be Columbo is what you're telling me. Or I'll go with Mike Logan on Law and Order. I'm an OG Law and Order guy. Detective Mike Logan would have figured this out

very, very quickly. But okay, so speaking of canceled, he got canceled, that actor. And just anyways, he dies and I could go on about what happened to the actor who portrayed Mike Logan. But he's Mr. Big on Sex and the City, if you're curious. Really? Yeah. I thought he was just called Big by the way. Isn't it Mr. Big or is it just Big? Maybe you're curious. Really? I thought it was just called Big, by the way.

Isn't it Mr. Big or is it just Big? Maybe you're right. I've only seen... So, you know, they rebooted this show. It's called And Just Like That and it's on Crave, but I don't know if you've caught any And Just Like That. I have not. I've seen maybe three episodes of Sex and the City.

Is that it? Yeah. You weren't forced to watch that with a partner. I was forced. They were? Yeah. You weren't forced to watch that with a partner. I was forced. They were, yeah, she forced me to watch three episodes and I basically said, you know, if I said, if there was a show about guys talking like this, right, it would be off the air. Isn't that called Entourage? I don't know.

I didn't watch that. I didn't watch that. But I'll say this. Okay. So in my first marriage, uh, my wife I was, I like to pretend she made me watch sex and the city because it was a show she loved and we'd watch it together. And I'm now here to disclose for you. I feel comfortable disclosing to you, Scott. And before we get back to the serious business, we need a little

break from the heavy talk. I'll just disclose to you that I secretly really liked the show. I liked the show. These four women talking openly about giving oral sex and about their lives and intimacy and and I actually totally dug it so much so that in I have a Different wife now. Oh, hi Monica and in this marriage I'm like do you want to try the reboot of and just like that and I put it on for us and all this is a Long-winded way to say that I had heard Samantha because Samantha had a falling out with the actresses. Look at how much I know about this, but Kim Cattrall had a falling out with the other actresses and did not want to participate

in this reboot. So she's absent. She's in England. What a busy person. But I read somewhere she was going to make an appearance in the finale of this season two. And I was like, Oh, Samantha's coming back. This is exciting to me. Like, I'm not ashamed to tell you this, Scott. So I tune into this finale to see it. She literally phoned it in. It's just the actress, Kim Cattrall playing the Samantha Carey. She's in the back of a cab or something Face timing with Carrie and saying, sorry, I can't make your big party to say goodbye to the apartment. I wish I could be there. I love you. Bye. Like didn't even step in the same room as these actresses. Maybe the falling out is not over. It's no, clearly. Like, oh my God, they're probably, Oh, you know, Samantha's coming back.

No, she recorded something. She's just zoomed into this finale. And that's basically, I will, I will appear on the show virtually. Yeah, I will appear on the show, but I will not be in the same room as any of these actresses. Yeah. But if the check clears, you'll get a video message from me that you can use is what happened there. Okay. Kim Cattrall once dated Pierre Elliott Trudeau. I did not know that. Yes. There's a photo of them going to something. Yeah. A young Kim Cattrall who spent a lot of time in Canada. Okay. See, Scott, you never know where Toronto Mike's going to take you. But now I need to get back to this. I hope I can pronounce it this adjudicator.

So, okay, investigative process, three months, you meet with them a couple of days later, you're in a room, I'm guessing somebody's got a file of someone from HR has got a folder and there's someone there maybe from security and like, you're getting the tap on the shoulder, your services are no longer required, but you then like go home, talk to your lawyer, whatever, and then whatever. But there's no severance here, which is an issue. So how does this get to an adjudicator? Well, unfortunately, I've become, you know, quite up to speed on employment law matters, which I had to right away. And in this case, when you're going to challenge something for unjust dismissal, and it's in the federal domain because Bell Canada is federally regulated, you have 90 days

to file your complaint. 90 days. And if you don't file in 90 days, well, too bad. So I filed, and then once you file, they send it to mediation, which, you know, they, they try to mediate. Um, and if that doesn't work, then you go to adjudication, which is like hearings with witnesses. They call people, they, it's like court, it's like court, but just a step below, cause you're not actually in a, in a court, you're not in a courthouse. And, and we did all that from January 2019 until until the ruling in July of 2020.

OK, so I have a quote that this is from your medium article. So according to you, Scott, the adjudicator wrote, I have serious concerns about the manner in which the investigation was conducted while it was clear that the investigator was thorough in her actions and analysis, and that lengthy meetings were held with each of the quote unquote players involved, the evidence suggests that significant errors were made. Right. And those, I included in the medium essay three quotes from the adjudicator that have that same theme

right? About doubts, how the investigation was done, how it ended, right? Because there were questions of, the main question was how did you investigate for three weeks, three months, sorry, come up with one conclusion and then suddenly it changed in about 24 hours, right? That was the question. And there was no real strong explanation for that. It just, you know, it didn't sort of sound on the up and up, you know, and that's what the adjudicator was pointing to. And you know, that's why I focused on that because that to me is the injustice is how

do you look into something and clear me and then not. So have you received any money now we're six years out. So have you ever received any money or is this literally you're fired for cause and you walked away with nothing? Right. The adjudication ended. It was not successful and no, it was nothing. It was, again, I cannot stress this more.

If I did not make a complaint about a racist remark in the newsroom in front of four people, none of this would have happened. None of it. Because there wouldn't have been retribution, there wouldn't have been a group out to get me, the producer would not have, you know, fired up her friends to get me, you know. The producer was getting a lot of pressure in the middle of the adjudication to testify. Um, but she didn't want to, she did not want to testify. And here, I'm going to tell you something that's absolutely stunning. Okay.

The middle of the adjudication, um, I found out from my ally in the newsroom, um, that, uh, the producer that the producer has quit her job. She quit her job, staff position, to go freelance at CBC, out of the blue in the middle of the adjudication. And they did not wanna, the producer did not wanna testify, because again, I think she knew, well, none of knew well, none of the producer who made the comments about your lip. Right. And, and, and this is, this is basically, um, this is basically about a year or so later and,

and they're being forced to testify, but they don't want to, they quit their job. They leave CTV. Um, and, and then they decide that they need to get a lawyer. Now, how do I know that? How do you know that? So one day in the middle of the adjudication, it was, uh, June of 2019, June of 2019 I'm at home. Uh, I'm getting ready for the next court date, which is a few days from that.

It was June the 24th. Our next hearing date was a couple days later. And my lawyer phones me and he said, are you playing a practical joke or something on me? I'm like, no. Well, what happened? Well, the producer who lawyered up or who wanted to lawyer up, a friend of hers suggested, hey, you know, you should, you may need a lawyer in this, right? Because of everything that's going on. And so she reached out to an employment lawyer

who happened to be my lawyer. Wow. Wow. Who happened to be my lawyer. Wow. Wow. Who happened to be my. What a small world. I don't know how many employment lawyers there are in Toronto, but to send an email, and it basically said, hey, I have an employment law matter. I need to do a consultation. Sure.

One of my colleagues got fired for sexual harassment. He's fighting for his job back. The employer wants me to testify. I don't want to. I need some independent legal advice. What do you charge for, you know, an initial consultation? The last line was there are some complicating factors. We received this email. We had to produce it. We had to give it to the adjudicator. Disclosure or whatever. To say hey, you know, your witness,

who they eventually just subpoenaed her. They subpoenaed two of their own witnesses. Their witness reached out to my lawyer to get help. you know, they eventually just subpoenaed her. They subpoenaed two of their own witnesses. Their witness reached out to my lawyer to get help. I couldn't believe that that happened, but it did. Now I'm glad we kept names out of this. Okay, so that was a good call on your part. So, wow. Okay, so this is out of an episode of Columbo or something. There was no email in Columbo. It would be a snail mail arriving in the post office there. Okay, so I don't want to belittle any women in this story who felt sexually harassed, but this behavior of yours that was deemed non-harassment in that March 8th email from

the investigator. There's no sexual. They're not sexual in nature. Right. You said you these are just I'm just curious about because these all these women who say they got these messages from you that eventually led to your dismissal, which sounds like for cause, it sounds like sexual harassment is the cause that they used in order not to sever you fairly. So because you don't have to sever someone, I suppose, in that situation. But these are not sexual messages

to women in the newsroom, right? Well, an investigator looked into that for three months and said that it wasn't until either she changed her mind or was told to change her mind. I'm not sure which one it was. Are you able, so this ad judication ruling that is against you. Did you have an option to appeal that you do? the problem with appeal is You get you know when you initially challenge an unjust dismissal, you know

One side wins one side loses nobody nobody pays anybody's costs right when you appeal I believe you have One side wins, one side loses, nobody pays anybody's costs. When you appeal, I believe you have six months, I could be wrong on that, but you have a short window in which to appeal. And my worry was, number one, I wasn't in a union, so a union wasn't playing quarterback on this for me. It was me. And I could appeal and risk losing, surprisingly again,

and then have to pay the costs of BCE. I mean, they're hiring $800 lawyers, right? It is, you use the term. $800 an hour lawyers. Right, right, right, because that'd be a bargain if they had those. In your medium piece, you called it David versus Goliath. I mean, and that's what this would be at that point.

The pockets of BCE are rather deep, and I don't know, yours don't sound as deep. That's, again, that was, that was the, um, the fundamental appeal. The fundamental reason was it was risky. It was also just financially impossible. I mean, I, I was, I was carrying this on my own. Um, shockingly, it didn't work out the first time. To lose the second time and then have to pay their costs? Forget it. No way. I'm not going to risk that. And again, the

window, it might have been three months, it might be six months, but you have a certain amount of time to do that. And what's been eating at me for all that time is that now people have this impression that oh Scott Laurie is X this is false right and I had to write that to defend my name now I don't know you know how many people out there have to defend their names but is it ever is it ever too late to defend your name? No, it isn't. No, and this all starts with this, you know, racism you experienced in the newsroom that you stood up for yourself. And I do always been curious about if you had a time machine. Do you go back and say nothing after the lips comment? If you had a time machine?

You know, I've thought about that and, and you know I've received a few messages from people who have said yeah I've experienced the same thing you know even last night somebody somebody sent me an email saying not in the email but a message on LinkedIn saying yeah I've experienced the same thing and you know do I go back in a time machine and say, geez, maybe I just let it slide? No, you do not let racism in the workplace slide and had my bosses taking it seriously and then realized, had they realized that, oh wait a second, there's retribution now.

Because of this, which wouldn't have been that difficult to do. Yeah, but this wouldn't have happened. I think the most valuable lesson I learned in my professional life was in my first full-time job when I had the moment where I learned and I realized the epiphany, if you will, that HR does not work for you. Like, HR exists to like mitigate risk for,

well, in your case your case would be for BCE but for the the ownership like so so See I had never gone to HR in my life. The only time I I had gone to HR probably twice To at Bell Media and it was for the employee share plan, right? That was it right, right that was the only time I had ever gone there. And, and, um, and it's just why, why would I not go and make a complaint when somebody is absolutely being racist? Do you know the name Hal Johnson? So how from the workout guy participation with his wife, Joanne. So he came on Toronto, Mike, and he shared a story. This is before Bell Media owned TSN. So before Bell Media was the owner, but at TSN, which is now a Bell Media property, he was applying for a job and he shared

his story about how I'm going to use his terminology here, but they already had a black guy. Like it was basically he didn't get the job because they didn't need another black guy. This is, this is how story and it's just it's you know that was of the eighties and before Bell Media owned the story but I did just share off the top that I had a there's a lengthy conversation and I haven't deleted any episode of the Toronto Mike so you can hear Amber G road talk about the racism that she experienced in the the 1010 news, but this shit's still going on. And what's bugging me in this story is similar to how I felt with Mike Stafford.

Again, all different story completely, Mike Stafford, how he was treated by Coris. But I felt he was done dirty and that Coris got away with not having to pay him any severance. And it bugs me to this moment I'm talking to you now. But your story there, if they had let you go and severed you fairly, the way the law works, as I understand it, is they don't need a reason to let you go if they sever you fairly. I think they could fire you at any time for any reasons. So in the Me Too era, even though this investigator said this is not harassment and you shouldn't lose your job, it's easier for them to just say goodbye to Scott

and then cut you a check. But they didn't do that. And that's what's piss, that's pissing me off right now. And I think it's, you know, that you tying it to that, you stand up for yourself because of the lips comment and I'm glad you stood up for yourself, except your story is a cautionary tale. You know what, I, as crazy as this sounds, I might've stood up for myself a cautionary tale. You know what, as crazy as this sounds,

I might have stood up for myself a little too strongly. In the middle of this entire process, right, when I was pushing to have the producer just moved off the show, right, there were a couple of meetings between my bosses in HR, and at the very last meeting, it was almost as if they were trying to convince me, come on, it wasn't racist.

It was just a joke. And then my boss said, actually, in the middle of that conversation, as they were trying to convince me that it wasn't racist. I just, I had had it and I said to the three people that were there, I said, you know what, if one other person in this room besides me were black, you'd understand why I think it was racist. And my boss said, you know, you're not playing that card, are you? Oh boy. And your boss is a white

person. But in front of HR and I was stunned. It was like, what universe are we in where someone is going to say that, right? And that meeting just ended badly. It just ended badly because I got the sense that, wow, they really don't care. They just don't care. And ultimately, the producer was moved. But at the time, I thought, all right, the producer's friends are mad. Maybe my boss is mad. I have no idea. But this has been just a mess, right? All because I stood up to someone who made fun of my lips.

What an infuriating story, Scott. My goodness gracious. Okay. So let's bring it to the current day here. So we're six years removed from you being fired from your dream job there at CTV news And as you disclose off the top you've been interviewing for jobs So so why did it end for you at the Toronto Sun was this just a contract that expired or you know? And I'm glad you brought that up Because I almost forgot you know if I didn't mention if I didn't mention Adrian Batra the editor-in-chief and and and And and Jack Boland and Jonathan Kingstone, you know, and, and Mr. Han, who, uh, you know, they, they basically, you know, did me a favor and gave me a job. Um, Adrian called me out of the blue and said, you know what,

what happened to you is BS. Um, you know you is BS. Would you come work for us? And I thought, hey, why not? My thinking was, because the sun is really on a push to do more video, because again, the media landscape, especially in newspapers. The pivot to video, Scott? Right, it's just, there's so much change going on that who knows where we are in that,

in that change and where it's going to end up. But I thought, okay, I can go there and, and maybe someone in television land is going to say, well, you know, maybe, maybe Scott is, you know, employable. Right. And so I stayed there for, I was there for 19 months. It was great. Um, it was almost like, it was almost like getting a redo on being a local reporter in Toronto again, because the first time around, when I was at CBLT, it was not very long and I was not very good. And this time it was, it was,

I mean, everything was going on, you know, COVID was happening. Um, you know, there were a lot of demonstrations that were happening around that. Things were sort of opening up again. The invasion of Ukraine started. There was a lot going on, and it was just good. It was a good way to get my mind off of things and get back into doing journalism.

It was fun. And I really owe a big thank you to Adrian Batra and Jonathan. But that did come to an end. Yes, it did. I left because I happened to get a new job. Okay. That's a good reason. Yes, exactly. I got a new job and, um, you know, it was, uh, it was, it was short. Um, and, uh, and here we are. Like I'm, I'm now looking for work again. And then, and again, because throughout this entire summer that we just went through, right. Five interviews. Great. I mean, they were fantastic interviews and it was just nothing. And you think it's due to this stink on you because when people start asking around, it's going to be revealed that you were fired for cause for sexual harassment.

And who wants to hire that guy, right? Right. And no one knows the backstory of how we got to that point. And I think, call me biased, but I think that's important. Are you following, and I'm not sure how this is resolved, but I was reading an article about your former colleague, Paul Bliss. Are you friendly with Paul Bliss? I am not, the last conversation I ever had with Paul Bliss I think was in 2018.

2018 okay because he launched a seven point five million dollar lawsuit over his dismissal and he was he was facing sexual misconduct allegations and he was suing CTV news and of course and I actually need to find out what happened with that lawsuit. But I'm just- That's a good question. I do not know. But I'm just wondering, have you consulted a lawyer? If your reputation has been damaged, and I'm going to quote you again, because I did it off the top, and this is how I want to close our chat, but you wrote, for six years I have lived with this. I have been tarnished with an unfair public impression that I am a workplace risk because of the continuing and overwhelming cost to me on my career, my mental health, my personal

relationships, my quality of life and my name. I cannot be silent anymore. So I want to like I want to see. So obviously your career. Are you working right now? Scott? No. So you're currently looking for work and that's why you've had these interviews

that have gone quite well until the crickets appear. Okay. Your mental health. So this is six years removed, and I know that your coping mechanism is the hockey game, and I'm glad that exists, but how are you doing? You know, it's, it's, yeah, you live with something like this every day and it's, you know, you think, what if this

and what if that and it's, yeah, and how am I doing? Well, I'm trying to get through every day, you know, one step at a time, basically. And, you know, one step at a time basically. And you know, my original plan was just keep applying for work, you know, something will come through and it got to the point where I'm not sure. I mentioned five, but you know, since 2018, I've probably applied for thousands of jobs, thousands. I'm not kidding, thousands.

Even at CBC, a few at Global, many in communications, government communications, corporate communication, nothing. So, it's, you know, how am I doing? I'm trying to get through things. I'm hoping that if people have a better understanding of what really happens, then that might help. Well, I'm glad you're talking about this. On the live stream, Canada Kev called it, Bell, don't talk. So instead of the let's talk, he says, it's Bell, don't talk, because you stood up for yourself and here you are now. But you do deserve your name back. Like I think context is important in this case.

Because you're right, if you're in a shrinking industry, so there's high demand for these jobs and then just having been fired for sexual harassment at CTV, at Bell Media, that might result in the crickets if people don't understand the context of this story. And I don't think that's fair to you at all and I'm very glad that you've decided to talk about this. Well just yesterday one of my one of my acquaintances Facebook friends told me exactly that I mean that she was very

happy that I that I decided to come forward and about a about a year and a half ago that person reached out to me just out of the blue, completely. It was an odd contact. And it came about 10 years after she left CTV. And she basically said, hey, Scott, I wanted to let you know that, you know, a couple of months after you got fired from CTV, somebody from CTV reached out to me, asking me if I wanted to complain about you. Wow.

And, and this person, two people have done that, but this person circled back to me and said, you know, after you were fired, they were still looking for people who, who would complain about you and they refused. Right? And I don't know why they did that. Like why, if I'm out the door already, I'm gone. Right? And they were still looking for people.

And I think it was because I had challenged it at adjudication and they were looking for justification for something that was unjustified and did not, like it was just not something that was unjustified and did not, like it was just not something that was appropriate under the circumstances. Also, they may have always felt like there might be a day when you decide to tell your story, right?

Like the day that arrived very recently when I read that piece that you spent six weeks writing, that was the medium piece, like you're now telling your story and they probably thought that day might arrive and maybe they had more ammunition or something. I really don't know, but I was shocked when two people that I worked with, contacted me years later to say, did you know that months after you were gone, they were

phoning me asking, hey, would you like to make a complaint about Scott Laurie? And they said, hell no. That guy was set up, right? It was a witch hunt. That's what they said. Ah, yeah. I'm getting pissed off here. Okay, not at you, Scott. At this whole situation you're in here. So the cost, you mentioned your career, it's been clear, your mental health of, man, I hope you have somebody you can talk to because I know how dire that can be for for people. And I hope that you're taking care of your mental health here. Trying my best on your best. I hope you score a score a Hattie in the next the next hockey game. That was Sunday. Did you score three Three times. Oh yeah okay you got a honey. Okay yeah okay that's how you get a hand trick. My personal relationships, so you don't have to

disclose but you don't want to disclose but it sounds like this last six years might have affected your personal relationships. Is that beyond you know colleagues who felt you were a sexual harasser or is there more there? No, there are some people that I just, I've not heard from at all. Like people you think, oh yeah, I'll hear from them. No, nothing, zero. Just it's like, you know, it's almost like you stop existing, right?

And I just felt, you know, at the beginning of this year, I have to start existing again. And this is one way of doing it by saying, hey, this is what happened. And don't just take what's out there as the truth. But honestly, in some cases, it feels like people write you off and you don't exist anymore. Have you ever seen The Wire? Love that show. Okay well what does Marlowe say? My name is my name! I did not know that. Well I'll lend you my box set here. It's in the liner note Scott but

your name is your name and really at the end of the day you just want your name back and I hope you I hope this I hope you get your name back and I hope we stop hearing these crickets. Because I mean, what I watched, you're great at what you do and you stood up for yourself when a producer made a racist remark. And I respect that. And I respect you sharing your story. And I'm glad we got to meet here. It was worth the drive. You're getting the lasagna, the beer, and thank you for the real talk, man. Thank you very much. And I hope it all works out. We'll get you back for a sequel when things turn around. And I see you back. We'll get you back for a sequel and catch up with you.

See you soon. And that brings us to the end of our 1438th show. You can follow me on Twitter and Blue Sky Metronome. So Scott, I know you're on X, formerly known as Twitter, as at like, I think it's underscore Scott Laurie. Do I have that right? Yes, that's right. Okay. Is that the way you'd like people to follow your adventures and find out where you end up next?

Yeah, I'm not as active on X as I normally would be. Only yeah only because as somebody as somebody once described it it's a river of bile with the odd you know nugget. No well said I'm gonna borrow that line actually. Much love to all who made this possible that's Great Lakes Brewery don't forget your beer Scott. Palma pasta I'm gonna get your lasagna in a moment. Recyclemyelectronics.ca. Raymond James Canada and Ridley Funeral Home. There's your measuring tape, Scott. Tomorrow, I'm dropping a great conversation with Alfie Zappacosta about Tears Are Not Enough, the Pizza Nova pizza Nova jingle and more.

That'll be episode. Here's what I did, Scott. So I recorded it and normally I drop things right away, but I had this one in the can, but I said, okay, four, three, nine, Oh, pizza Nova. This is his jam. He sings that he composes this thing. This is his jam.

So he could be episode one, four, three, nine. Ah, see how clever it is? That's pretty good. Yeah, because you're 1438 and he'll be tomorrow. See you all then! soccer ball on every day But I wonder who Yeah, I wonder who Maybe the one who doesn't realize There's a thousand shades of gray

Cause I know that's true Yes I do I know it's true, yeah I know it's true How about you? I'm picking up trash and then putting down rogues And they're brokering stocks, the class struggle explodes And I'll play this guitar just the best that I can