About that Ottawa International Book and Food Expo ...

The crowd at the Book and Food Expo to see the so-called free speech panel during the Q&A

I should start at the beginning.

Back in January, I was approached to co-emcee the Ottawa International Book and Food Expo. You can read about it in my last email:

Come hang out at the Ottawa Food and Book Expo

Well, it turns out that it was a trap. A massive, confusing and bizarre trap.

I was asked to emcee for the whole weekend alongside Bill Welychka. There was no schedule or instructions at all beyond being told to be on site from 9 to 7, and so Bill and I divided up the duties so that we could take breaks from being on stage. The stage was in the middle of an echo-y hall. From the hall you could hear the stage fine. From the stage, it was muddy reverb.

We co-emceed the first panel, then he took the next panel on dating and matchmakers and I emceed the panel on spirituality (you will notice a theme: a distinct lack of authors). In between, the organizers asked us to interview the exhibitors.

The booths posed a problem. They were a dog’s breakfast of new-age healing booths, arts and crafts, companies like Desjardins and Costco, religions, self-published authors, cults and anti-COVID freaks. While I’m glad to know that this works for some people aparently, I had a hard time talking to one exhibitor on camera about how all illness is simply trauma and if you cure the trauma, you can cure someone’s cancer. I wasn’t there to debate or challenge — I was being paid a pitiful $500 to ask people to tell me about their booths and host some panels over an entire weekend.

The first day was confusing. There were very few actual books on hand (though lots of great food). Bill was there to sell his newest book and I think I was his only sale (someone did swipe a copy too). I didn’t even bring my own books because it wasn’t clear how and where I would sell them. Despite one of the lures to get me there the promise to promote my books, there wasn’t any way obvious to me to actually do that. Besides, when you’ve written a book about COVID, what was I supposed to do, sell it beside the booth selling books about how David Fisman invented the pandemc? Hardest of passes.

The situations I was in were uncomfortable and layered. Nothing about this event was black and white, straightforward and clear. At the head of organizing was a guy who was nice and kind hearted but also, over his head and unwilling to deal with the mess his lack of organizing created.

The first panel was mostly normal until the end, when Maxime Bernier physically grabbed me. We had a few audience members yelling at panellists making things uncomfortable for everyone. Two audience members randomly attacked Sentor Kim Pate (not physically — thanks Bernier for needing me to spell that out). I moderated a panel that included three people, including someone from this religion and someone from this religion; I didn’t sign up for *any* of this. I didn’t sign away my right to say … wait, hold up… for just $500.

But I had expenses to be paid too and I had the sense that if I made any noise at all, that would be put in jeopardy. So Bill and I rode out Day One. It was beautiful outside. During the spirituality panel, I could smell the spring rain falling outside. I ate a wonderful Earl Grey Vanilla scone from one of the vendors. The singing, dancing and music performances were great. The guy who did sound, who left before I could get his name, became a good friend. There had been several cancelled panels and so while I was on deck to stay till 7:00 PM, I got to leave at 5:30.

By Day Two, an article from PressProgress had circulated widely that called into question like nine different aspects of the Ottawa International Food and Book Expo had a lot of people present freaked out. I hadn’t read it yet but Bill had it loaded on his phone for me to read. He was unimpressed. I was unimpressed. The big event for Day Two was a panel on Free Speech organized by someone who none of the three panellists could verify existed. The panellists were Andrew Lawton from True North media, a random woman whose claim to fame was being fired by Western for something related to COVID and Randy Hillier. A fourth panelist, someone who provided legal support to the Trucker Convoy claims on Twitter that he never agreed to be present.

Now, to give you an objective sense of how this was going by Sunday morning, Andrew was the friendliest face in the crowd. A man with whom I share nearly no opinions, and who i have argued with online but never have met IRL. Someone who I could write three kilometres of criticism on was the only level-headed and sympathetic person in the room. Other than Bill, of course. I knew that I was trapped.

I told the group that I couldn’t moderate the panel for reasons that should be obvious to anyone with half a brain. A moderator isn’t a panelist. I couldn’t ask “neutral” questions to people with whom I have severe (and well-known) criticism of. Hillier (who bear hugged me from the side while insisting that he wouldn’t bite or something, three centimetres from my nose) had brought a crowd of a few dozen people and, I thought, if the three hecklers from the day before made me uncomfortable and irritated, there was no possible way in hell I could sit on that stage for this panel. Like — absolutely none. For a panel on Free Speech, I decided to exercise my own free speech and bow out.

And then I realized: this was all a set-up.

Lawton and the lady both said they were going to walk away from the panel but then changed their minds. I helped them figure out how to have the panel without a moderator and it went fine. Bill heroically introduced the panel and I sat with the sound guy. By the time Q&A rolled around and someone else was passing along the mic, I was relieved. I dipped out for a decaf. It was almost over. The crowd rushed Hillier for autographs and then dissipated. The rest of the panels that day had been cancelled due to people pulling out as a result of the PressProgress article.

And I was asked to go on and keep interviewing booth people.

I agreed to interview the food booths; enough with the stuff that was making me die inside. I had six or so nice, quick chats and I hope that the organizers got useful clips that the exhibitors can use to advertise their restaurants or catering services.

By about 1:30, I asked the main organizer Ray Samuels if I could go and he said yes. Bill had been released a bit before me.

Deep down, I knew that the money that I was owed: $1500 in a combination of my flight and taxis to and from the airport, and the promised $500 honorarium, was on the line. So too was the $450 that was committed to me, in writing, for three nights in a hotel. Yes, the contract and dozens of emails all laid this out. But sure enough, the first email I saw on Monday morning was from Ray. He insinuated that I broke the contract by insulting COVID lady to her face. And, because I said that I was being paid to be there, I had forced the Ottawa International Book and Food Expo to pay thousands to these panelists for their expenses. Two of them had travelled from London.

Now, COVID lady (Julie Ponesse) is a liar. I was polite to her in person and, as I didn’t know who she was, I had no way of insulting her. But she apparently hadn’t thought to get her expenses covered and so she cooked up a bunch of bullshit about me on Twitter to convince Ray to pay her. It got RT’d a few hundred times and Ray claimed that her fantasy constituted my breach of contract.

Julie, for a professional grifter, you grifting game is weak. That’s not an insult either, just an observation.

But even still: despite the fact that I came to the event, did my work and even stayed around for a panel that was obviously a set-up, Ray Samuels is refusing to pay me. My contract says that my travel expenses would be covered — but because he didn’t *explicitly* say yes to my plane ticket and taxis (though implicitly agreed several times in writing), he thinks he can walk on paying me. My contract says that I will be paid a $500 honorarium but my refusal to sit on the stage with Randy Hillier, COVID lady and Lawton, Ray thinks that that’s enough to null and void the work I had done that weekend. A funny thing that he didn’t mention this contract breach before he asked me to do more exhibitor interviews. I’m sure the judge will be impressed by his logic.

Yes, of course, I’ll take this to Small Claims. But my god: what a waste of my time and potential damage to my credibility and reputation. I heard from a lot of you: panicked, disappointed, angry — I was finding the details out at the same time that many of you were. And now, I have to expend time and resources just to get my money back.

I’ll keep you posted on my progress. I have won thousands of dollars for members of the Canadian Freelance Union in the past and I think that this is a pretty open-and-shut case. But I’m not even confident that I’ll be able to serve the organizer. Though, at least I was dealing with someone who I can say in confidence, actually exists. Not like some of the others duped this weekend.

Post-script: if you love music or loved MuchMusic or miss the 1990s, you absolutely should read Bill’s new book. Learn more here and ask your local indy bookstore.