What Actually Happened.

This story is old, old news, from 1998 in fact. This post should answer any questions you have, but if you do have questions, I'll gladly answer them for you. I've also included the editorial I wrote about this business after the lawsuit, from the May 2001 issue of my newspaper, for additional context.
All of this is known to my personal friends. I don't hide it, but I don't talk much about it as it was an unpleasant period in my life. However, the time is now here to put this story to bed, to pull the pin on the crap that certain people are putting about to cause me trouble. As people who have shown your faith in me, even if only on social media, you deserve no less.
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There is a great deal more to this story than was ever made public. The short story - two well known local businessmen, one whom I knew and the other whom I knew of, advertised an investment plan in one of my newspapers. Five people took them up on it and invested, the total for all five was $80,000 Cdn. This was in 1998.

A few months later, two of the individuals were phoning to ask me why they hadn’t been repaid on their investments. When I started looking into their complaints, I realized there was something wrong and contacted the police, who interviewed me at my office the next day. 

The two men involved in defrauding Carrigan and the others who were charged and arrested based on my information. There were actually three men involved, but the third, whom I never met, lived in Britain I'm told and was never charged.

Again, none of this came out in any of what's been made public, did it? My actions in this issue are why I have a letter of thanks from the police. I’ve asked for a copy of that letter via the Ontario Provincial Police Freedom of Information office. 

Goldhawk, who wrote the story in his book, got involved after the two men were charged, and lost his TV show in the fall of 2001. The reason he lost the show was that he deliberately altered and then broadcast a photo he used in his show in an effort to damn me, to make me look bad. That didn't come out either did it? 

Why was I involved with Goldhawk at all? Because one of the men defrauded, Carrigan, hired a lawyer to sue my newspaper over the advertisement he responded to. Goldhawk heard of the story and focused on that, even though in accepting the ad I had done nothing wrong. This would be like someone finding a gun in a cabinet you’d built in someone else’s house shooting himself and then blaming you for it. Wasn’t your gun, was it, but we’re talking lawyers and lawsuits here. Anything goes.

Anyhow, four days after seeing Goldhawk’s broadcast, it was a Thursday, I met with one of the VPs for CTV at his Toronto office (where I once worked in fact). I showed him the original documents that Goldhawk did not include in his show, as well as the original of the photo that was altered by Goldhawk. I suggested that he wouldn't want CTV to be a part of a lawsuit against Goldhawk for how he had lied and misled the viewers with his dishonest treatment of these materials. 

The VP reviewed both the show as well as the tape Goldhawk took that was NOT used in it, and compared both to the materials and photo I’d provided him. 
That tape was nearly an hour of an interview with me that entirely disproved what Goldhawk was claiming. In the show itself, Goldhawk used about ten seconds of the interview he'd taped with me because the tape was completely contrary to his claims and it was clear he didn’t know what he was talking about. That, or he was being deliberately misleading to create a false narrative that made him look good.

After doing his due diligence, the VP consulted with CTV’s legal team and the decision was made to cancel Goldhawk’s show. I was advised of the decision by phone that same day before the news was made public. In return, I didn't pursue a lawsuit as was our private agreement. 

Something you should understand - CTV killed that show only a few weeks before the new season started. That’s not normal in the industry, where scheduling is planned more than a year in advance, and that’s how seriously CTV took the situation. Goldhawk talks about his show being cancelled in his book - but he never knew what was behind the cancellation. As far as I know, he still doesn’t. And that is why he never got back into TV again. He’d been caught lying. His credibility as a consumer's advocate was shot.

Canada’s media industry is a small one, and as the owner of three regional newspapers and having briefly had my own cable TV show in the 90s, I knew a lot of those people either in person or by reputation, just as they knew who I was. Those who were making the decisions became aware of what Goldhawk had done, how he had lied to his viewers. Calls were made. You can connect the dots yourself.

It also didn’t come out that Carrigan’s lawyer tried to cause trouble for me when he told the police he thought I was responsible for Carrigan's death in a car accident. Carrigan was run over and killed by a nurse from the local hospital who lost control of her car. The lawyer called the investigating officer and actually told him I'd hired the nurse to do it. I found this out and called the officer, whom I knew. He told me he had immediately dismissed the accusation as ridiculous, as well as being an attempt to make trouble for me. 

This lawyer also tried to get me charged with threatening him based on a message left on an answering machine. The police looked into it, speaking with me, and told him there was nothing unlawful. When he persisted for the next two weeks in pestering them to lay a charge, they told him to cease or he would be charged with obstruction of a police officer. You didn't hear that in anything you’ve read either, did you? 
Also, Goldhawk was twice told - by two different police departments - to stop harassing me and to stay away from my office and home. He got mouthy with one officer and was nearly arrested outside my office. Again, none of this was ever brought out, but there are police reports on all these incidents.

Subsequently, this lawyer then tried to file a civil case over the so called ‘threat’ against me and claimed in a court hearing and while under oath no less, that I was responsible for, and I quote here: ..."the unsolved murders of three Simcoe County businessmen." Only problem was, in Simcoe County at that time, there were no unsolved murders. 

The police were in hysterics over his little story when they heard about it from the police detective who was with me to speak on my behalf that day. My cop friends teased me about this for nearly a year afterwards. 

Nor were you told in Goldhawk’s book or news stories you may have seen that there was a court order for total restitution against the two convicted men, and that Carrigan and the others defrauded by them were to be paid back.  I was standing at the back of the courtroom when the judge made that order. The judge made it clear that the two men would be jailed for breach if the monies were not paid back.
Under Canadian law neither man could be released from probation until those monies were paid back. So Carrigan got his money returned to him - and then chose to double dip by suing me and my newspaper with a shyster lawyer in a civil lawsuit.

And it isn't mentioned anywhere that he and his lawyer were willing to settle for $2000 before this lawsuit went to court. My lawyer told me I was "a fool" if I did not accept that offer. I wasn't happy about it, but agreed. In the end, despite my accepting the offer and with Carrigan and his lawyer agreeing to it, they broke their agreement and refused to settle. I have my lawyer's affidavit attesting to all of this.

None of this, and there was a lot more, ever came out in public and only my friends and my employees were aware of any of this. It was a terrible time for me, and I do not want to relive this over twenty years later, thank you. It took me three years to put the ugliness, anger and upset of all of this behind me, plus counselling from a very wise friend.

This information, and more, is in the hands of all of the people I do business with, because of others who have attempted to attack me in the past, using this issue as their weapon. I have done this to protect myself from exactly that sort of harassment from people like Jeff Siegel and others, who want to cause me trouble. Siegel is now under a court ordered restraining order in fact, because of his harassment of me. You aren’t the first person to hear about this story from them or through them, just the most recent. 

Of those who have attempted to attack me, two of those people no longer work in the marine publishing industry, one other was demoted from his position as executive editor after being strongly disciplined by the president of his company for repeating these slanders on Facebook. Siegel had his wrists slapped and was ordered to stop his harassment by the lawyers of the marine company he was contracted to.  Recently, he was put under a restraining order by the court because of his ongoing harassment. If he violates that order, he goes to jail.
Another was ordered by the managing editor of the publication he was writing for to cease and desist in making derogatory statements about me or he would be fired.

Me? I’m still here, still working, still speaking at boat shows, writing, doing videos, still doing quite well. 

That’s not bragging, that’s just to make it clear how little effect these attacks have had - let’s face it, all of these events are over 20 years old now. Nobody cares anymore. 
As for my readership, social media presence and the boaters I know - with the exception of a few butthurt individuals in the business I’ve called out on issues as noted above who despise me for doing that and making them look foolish, my reputation is rock solid. Again, I thank you for your trust in me.

To follow is my editorial on this issue, written in May of 2001. This was distributed publicly in my newspaper, read by close to 100,000 people, with copies sent to every lawyer in the county, more than 200 of them in Simcoe County and no one, not Goldhawk or the lawyer, ever challenged me in any way on what I said.
That's significant, because I called them out on their lies and all I heard was - crickets. Nothing. 
You know, reading it today over 17 years later, I feel exactly the same way as I did then. People either believe in you or they don't. And yes, that photo is me, 17 years ago with hair, and a tie and suit. I know, that is hardest of all to believe! 

Wally

SeniorsPlus editorial, May 2001

You know you’re successful in the newspaper business when people are not indifferent to what you do and write. Whether they love you or despise you, you know they’re at least reading you and that, to a newspaper person, is your basic measure of success.

During April I had a rather spectacular demonstration of the two sides of that lack of indifference. As regular readers know, I have been embroiled in a civil lawsuit which, as I could not afford spending over $40,000 to defend it, I lost. As a result of not having presented any defense evidence, I have been castigated by certain members of the legal profession locally and the media. Even that white knight of the downtrodden, Dale Goldhawk of CTV, has gotten involved. That’s an interesting tale.

While returning from an appointment concerning the lawsuit, an appointment whose time and location was really known only to the lawyer who opposes me, Goldhawk leaped out of his truck on Collier St. in Barrie and tried to put me on the spot with a camera in my face. Now we won’t address the ethics of a lawyer who would set somebody up like this - because that lack of ethics, along with three other complaints, is currently being looked into by the Law Society and it would be improper of me to comment - but rather than dignify Goldhawk’s questions on an in the street-in your face interview, I arranged to meet him at the CTV offices in Toronto for a sit down in front of the cameras two days later.

At that meeting, Goldhawk attempted to make the SeniorsPlus Investment Program you’ve seen advertised in these pages look like some sort of high risk investment, which it isn’t and me, like some kind of crook, which I’m not. He suggested that the investment caused one person to lose money.

However, during a 45 minute on camera interview and using the facts which he hadn’t bothered to research, I demonstrated very clearly that he didn't’ know what he was talking about. In fact, so thoroughly was his premise disproved that, when his show aired three days later, he didn’t use any of the tape of that interview, preferring instead to proceed with a blend of innuendo (his specialty), posturing and half truths - and Dale, if you don’t like those comments, try to sue me for libel - just bring your tape to court with you, if you dare. And remember, I told you I have a tape recording of our interview which we can compare to it. (Readers, he even used an altered photocopy in his segment, which to me is unethical and dishonest).

Now, since we aren’t discussing the lawyer’s ethics (leaving aside the question of whether or not lawyers have any), let’s discuss one of his mistakes. At the beginning of this lawsuit, I informed him I had discovered that one of the men (who was eventually criminally convicted of defrauding the lawyer’s client and four others) was receiving over $3000 per month in a royalty payment from a major Canadian firm in British Columbia. When I pursued this on behalf of the victims, the lawyer for that firm assured me that the company would turn that money over to the victims if given a legal excuse to do so, as they had been made aware of the fraud committed by the man they were paying. I’m told that getting the money turned over would not have been difficult to accomplish under the circumstances.

So what does our Don Quixote of the Courtroom do? He ignores the ready cash which, had he gone for it, would have returned around $40,000 of the $50,000 his client lost - and that is before the courts ordered the two convicted men to pay full restitution for what they stole from the victims! And guess what? That source of cash is now dried up. Opportunity lost. Why didn’t this lawyer pursue the funds? I don’t know. One person speculated that he was able to bill higher fees doing it the way he did. Is that true? Who knows, but is it possible? Well, I’ve discovered anything’s possible when it comes to lawyers.

Two people have tried to claim that I should also have been charged with fraud along with the two men who were convicted. I honestly wish I had been, as defending that charge and winning it would have put these petty and vicious comments to rest. However, the crown attorney was faced with the fact that three of the five victims were prepared to testify on my behalf, and one of the others had never met me.

Makes it a bit tough to get a conviction when your victims are testifying on behalf of the man you are accusing I should think. (Humourous aside - one of the victims called Goldhawk two days ago with the truth about what happened - Goldhawk dismissed his comments by saying to me that he was “an old man who was feeling sorry for you.” Ahhh Dale, there are none who are so blind as they who will not see.
Now, since I’ve mentioned crown attorneys, we have one in Barrie who won’t enforce the law. One of the two men criminally convicted in this case, now living in Prince Edward Island, has not yet paid (as of writing this) over $28,000 in court ordered restitution to the victims and is clearly in breach of his probation because of that.

When Justice Douglas sentenced these men, I clearly heard him say “If you do not pay, you will go to jail”. Yet this crown attorney won’t bring charges of breach of probation against this man and haul him back to jail in Ontario. He even refused to discuss the issue with one of the victims who phoned me about it when I conferenced a call between the two of them - despite the victim’s obvious willingness for me to be a part of the conversation, as no one else in the legal system is helping these people get their money back. So the criminal has not only fleeced his victims once, he’s now doing it again by refusing to pay them back - and this time, a crown attorney refuses to do anything about it. Hey John - this is justice? Hey Dale, here’s where you can really help the victims - go after this crown attorney - if you really give a damn like you said. Or are you the hypocrite I believe you to be?

So to say the least, there are a few people whom I cannot call friends in this saga - however, since most of them are lawyers and one is a faux journalist, I won’t lose any sleep over it.

Now, the same day that the chickenhawk’s story aired, I was at the Orillia Wal-Mart with a group of veterans and others, including Orillia Mayor Ron Stevens and Liberal MP Paul Devillers, (about whom I ALWAYS say nice things, eh Paul?, helping to raise funds for the Juno Beach project.

One of the D-Day veterans to whom I was introduced that day grabbed my hand back after shaking it and said “Let me shake your hand again”. "Why?", I asked him. “Because”, he says, “you are always standing up for the veterans and I’m proud to shake your hand’”.

I should have been thanking him - he faced bullets so that I could live my life in a free world - but he’s thanking me instead for the little I am able to do.

And last month, I received a thank you card at home from a senior whose husband I have been trying to help out in a difficult situation. It joins several other cards of a similar nature on my fridge - not in my office, because I don’t brag about these things. It’s part of what I consider the real cost of living - my way of paying for the blessings I’ve received in my life - you help others where you can. I’m a very able and fortunate person - I have intelligence, good health, great friends, a loving family...great readers too!...and I feel an obligation to make some sort of payback for all that I’ve been given.

So to all the lawyers and media clowns and other heroes out there who would like to take me down - go for it. Just remember, if you succeed, if you destroy SeniorsPlus, if you take everything I own, you still won’t take away that veteran’s handshake and opinion, and those cards will still be on my fridge. I’ll still help where and how I can.

And those are the things that count. Not mindless, uninformed and biased opinions from people whose toes I have stepped on or who I’ve shown for the fools they are.

And, dear readers, since I want to keep you reading SeniorsPlus, that is the end of this issue on these pages. I’ve got better things to write about and I’m sure you’re tired of hearing about this. Thanks for your faith in me and in SeniorsPlus. That’s important too.