S31 E10: Taking back control | The Banned Teacher

Okay, listen, fall is my favorite season, and the biggest reason for that is it means TIFF is year.

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Normally, we get into the biggest pop culture stories, and we do that in about 25 minutes or so, but during TIFF, we do it in half the time.

Listen to TIFF and 12 in our podcast feed every weekday during the Toronto International Film Festival so you can keep up to date without having to watch four movies in a day.

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This is is a CBC podcast.

Good morning.

It's immainly cloudy in Ottawa.

I'm Sarah Pazell.

Okay, so I'm in the car.

I am on my way to pick up Anne-Marie and we're heading to Toronto.

We have some unfinished business in Anne-Marie's hometown.

About eight months ago, several episodes back, we went to Eastern High School of Commerce, the school Anne-Marie attended, and where she says she was assaulted.

On our previous visit, she decided she wanted to see inside, but we couldn't get in.

Now she has permission, and I'm going to tag along.

How are you?

How are you?

What is it?

Anne-Marie tosses her carry-on bag into the back seat.

We wave goodbye to her husband as he heads out for a walk with their little dog.

How do you feel about going back to Toronto?

I have really mixed feelings about it.

I'm not sure what's gonna happen, but I do want to go into the music room.

I don't know why it's so important to me, but

yeah, I need to walk through this to get better.

That's really what it is about.

Yeah, for sure.

We're going to buckle up and then we're going to head off.

I don't know how long it will take us, maybe five hours-ish.

Yeah, something like that.

Knowing all the things that you know now, what might you tell that 16-year-old

Anne-Marie Robinson?

Hmm.

What I really want to say is that it wasn't, none of this was her fault.

But yeah, I mean, he was a predator.

The band teacher.

I'm Julie Irton.

This is the finale of season two of The Band Played On.

Anne-Marie Robinson is fixing systemic flaws flaws and making sure victims are heard.

We wanted to have our own voice.

There was no group of survivors of teacher on student sexual assault in Canada anywhere.

Where Anne-Marie was really quiet and sort of unassuming, where she's become like this powerhouse.

It's about us and it's about the system.

And Anne-Marie and I visit her old school one last time.

But first, she gets her music back.

Episode 10, Taking Back Control.

Anne-Marie's little dog runs circles around her.

She's in her living room setting up her French horn for a practice.

She cradles that horn.

It's the one she bought herself as a special treat.

It may as well be made of pure gold.

She cherishes it.

Oh, it means everything.

Music is the biggest joy in my life right now.

She sets her music on an antique stand, a flea market find.

First, she warms up.

Then she plays.

Anne-Marie now plays in multiple concert bands.

You know, I play three or four or five times a week.

And yeah, it's just, I just love it.

It's wonderful and it's fun.

And yeah.

And healing.

Yeah, absolutely.

Definitely.

Yeah.

I feel,

you know, when I play the French horn, it's like I'm getting back the one thing that I lost that was so important to me.

I mean, if you're a musical person, it's just this feeling that nothing else can replace.

And she gives full credit to her daughter for pushing her to do it back when her daughter was in her own high school band several years ago.

I'm grateful, so grateful to her that she cajoled me into being a musician again.

And so that's a victory for me and I celebrate it as that.

And the fact that she is a professional musician, I mean, that, I feel like it was kind of

like a little piece of magic or something.

Not magic, talent and hard work.

Anne-Marie's daughter is now in her early 20s.

She graduated from the Juilliard School in New York City and she plays in a symphony orchestra in a major U.S.

city.

You know,

it's very hard to become a professional bassoonist and achieve what she's achieving.

Music is in their blood, and Anne-Marie couldn't be more proud.

But it also makes me wonder what might have been.

In high school, Anne-Marie dreamed of becoming a professional musician, but her music teacher changed her path.

Both her kids now know all about that.

Anne-Marie says her daughter and her son have been following our investigation.

They've been wonderful.

They've been supportive.

And I think it's a bit difficult for them sometimes to process it

because I didn't tell them about it, you know, because I didn't know how.

And

so my how of telling everyone is really through this podcast.

Anne-Marie hopes this series will explain to everyone the motivation behind her new vocation because she hasn't just taken back her music, she's also regained her ability to develop and influence public policy and new laws.

This is CBC News.

Good morning.

It's clear.

New data throws an increasing number of sexual abuse reports from inside our country's schools, and survivors of abuse are calling for government action to protect kids.

Anne-Marie Robinson is a founding member of Stop Educator Child Exploitation.

Her group is working with the Center for Child Protection to find solutions.

The main recommendation is that these cases need to be managed and adjudicated by a fully.

Anne-Marie has a new job, but this one doesn't come with a salary.

It's a passion project, and she's teamed up with Peter Hamer to do it.

We're at my place.

Archie the Aussie Doodle greets Peter at the door.

Another dog looking for a cameo performance.

Anne-Marie's already here.

We head inside to catch up.

How are you?

You're okay.

Good, come on in.

This is Archie.

Peter sits down beside Anne-Marie.

There's no need for introductions.

They found each other a while ago.

Can I get you a coffee?

No.

No.

I followed Peter's journey in the first season of the band Played On.

He's a survivor of sexual abuse by a high school music teacher.

Anne-Marie heard that podcast and she reached out to Peter.

All the stars aligned, right?

I really think that without Anne-Marie and her knowledge and her experience, we wouldn't be where we are today.

I saw him as a very brave person who wanted to make change.

So I called him and we connected and we just started to explore what we could do.

They both realized sexual abuse in schools hadn't been eradicated and new risks, online grooming, texting, are changing the landscape.

I wanted to understand how cases were still happening and how these children were getting abused by their teachers.

Anne-Marie started to analyze all the regulatory and policy documents she could find.

She read the education laws for every province and territory in Canada, and then she searched through academic papers.

It all showed huge gaps in protections in every jurisdiction.

So there's just so much work that needs to be done.

I was quite ill when I first started doing this work, so it went very slowly.

But it was just something I could do that made me feel like I was doing something to fix something and heal myself.

Anne-Marie and Peter collaborated and started discussions with another group, the Canadian Centre for Child Protection.

That charitable organization was doing its own work looking at school abuse.

The center found between 2017 and 2021, more than 540 alleged victims had come forward to report sexual abuse in Canadian schools.

And I was really quite shocked and we just started to explore what we could do.

So, you know, CEASE, the Stop Educator Child Exploitation,

which is a name we came up with as a group, came about because of Anne-Marie's research.

We wanted to have our own voice.

There was no group of survivors of teacher on student sexual assault in Canada anywhere, but there is now.

We put out a paper and we are advocating for a fully independent body to be established.

An independent body to investigate reports of abuse by teachers, an office with no conflicts of interest with school boards, unions or governments.

And we wrote to every province and territory and so far

Manitoba is taking steps to improve their system.

It's not everything we wanted to see but it's a big improvement from where it is and just so.

In fact the province of Manitoba has recently passed a law to create an independent commissioner and develop a disciplinary process to deal with teacher misconduct.

It includes an online teacher registry.

Other jurisdictions are listening too.

It's actually difficult to to overstate the impact of Anne-Marie and Peter's group.

They have the ear of people in power and they're talking it up across the country.

Peter Hamer is with the group Stop Educator Child Exploitation and he is on the line with us this morning.

Peter, good morning.

Good morning, Robin.

First of all, what does the data show?

We've been having some policy discussions with Saskatchewan, Alberta, and we'll be talking next week to Nova Scotia.

And so

I think governments are trying to fix this problem.

You probably never imagined that you'd be once again really taking deep dives into policy research.

No, I thought that I had lost that forever.

But as soon as I started to think about this,

yeah, I couldn't let it go and I won't let it go probably until I'm gone from this earth.

You know, it's just something that needs to be fixed.

Where Anne-Marie was really quiet and sort of unassuming, where she's become like this powerhouse in these meetings with like the different ministers of education and where she's she kind of commands the room.

Oh, I know that Anne-Marie.

And so do her sisters, her blipsters.

That's the other group that's helped her regain her strength and motivation.

It's time for a catch-up with them.

There we go.

Good morning.

Good morning.

So everybody's going to be here.

As usual, Jeannie McKay out in BC is the first to log on to the Blipster call.

Good morning.

Good morning.

Can you hear?

I can hear you now.

Yes.

That's can you guys still see me because it's showing the blank screen?

We get through the usual technical glitches.

Oh my gosh.

I'm so bad at this.

Eventually, all six women are up on my screen.

Anne-Marie, Jeannie, Jackie, Rita, Ali, and Shiffon.

It is good to see you all together.

It is.

You know, I was thinking this morning, it's almost been a year since

we

all met.

It's hard to believe it's only been one year.

Yeah.

I asked for this gathering.

I wanted to talk to them about a recent development with their former teacher.

Doug Walker agreed to speak with me.

I have a long list of questions for him.

Then a couple days ago, he sent me a letter.

He's changed his mind.

There will be no interview after all with the banned teacher.

So do you want me to read this letter then?

Okay.

Here we go.

Good morning, Ms.

Irton.

I read them the letter.

Good morning, Ms.

Irton.

I have been strongly advised that in no way should I agree to an interview with the media and therefore I will not be speaking to you on April 6th.

I have paid and continue to pay a huge price for my behavior of almost a half century ago, and deservedly so.

I long ago lost my self-respect, and my actions have resulted in the loss of my beloved family and all my lifelong friends.

Strong language has been used in speaking to and about me, and the word betrayal has been at the forefront.

Any awards or accolades that came my way over the length of my teaching career have been dismissed.

I face old age alone, and I am bankrupt.

I have dug deeply and agonizingly into my past, attempting to seek all possible reasons for why I behaved as I did, examining my struggles with alcohol, low self-esteem, and forcing myself to revisit the pain and trauma of a parentless, directionless childhood.

Nonetheless, I conclude that I and I alone must bear the responsibility for my inexcusable behavior.

If the women who came forward in your investigation wish to lay blame on me for any misfortune that has befallen them as adults, that is their right.

Although I most definitely refute some of the allegations listed in your recent email, it will at this point make little difference in the poll of public opinion.

Profuse and abject apologies for all the harm I caused those many years ago and seemingly continue to cause will offer little or no consolation to anyone, including myself.

However, I give them unreservedly, and I do not expect in any way to be forgiven.

Your upcoming podcasts will no doubt continue to paint me as a predatory monster.

It matters not how much I have tried over the years to atone for the actions of my younger adult self.

Thank you for your understanding.

I will have nothing more to say.

Sincerely, Douglas Walker.

He's looking for pity.

He's looking for us to offer him understanding.

I mean, what he did was premeditated.

Allie's not ready to offer understanding.

She reported the teacher to high school administrators in 1987 before he moved to a different school.

I don't understand why he's never gone for counseling.

To me, that's one thing that's missing from all of those

self-pitying emails and all that.

If as an adult you realize that you had a damaging childhood, which I did, and you realize that you've done regrettable things, you know, which all of us have, go get some fucking help.

He also only talks about himself mostly.

It's all about what he lost and what this cost him.

And then he does say he refutes some of it.

It's not about him.

It's about us.

It's about us and it's about the system.

He made it sound like it was one thing that happened 50 years ago.

It went on for, you know, from the beginning of his career, at least all the way up to the end of the 80s.

Yeah.

Right.

And then when he got caught, he behaved poorly.

He behaved poorly at Genie's tribunal, which

where he didn't tell the truth and didn't acknowledge the multiplicity of victims that he had.

And then when

I went through court hearings with him,

he didn't behave in an honorable, respectful way towards me or the courts.

And that was recently.

Anne-Marie is talking about how the teacher dragged out the court process with his delays.

I want him to come clean.

We know that we're not the only victims.

I mean, it's just logic.

I mean, we have no proof, but logic suggests that there's no reason he would not have continued his behavior over his career and we have missing pieces.

I did ask, I could, I asked him if he could provide other names.

I asked him 28 questions.

I wanted to ask him about the punch, about these survivors, about the stories other women have told me, the ones I haven't named in this podcast.

And I wanted to know more about his time with the Royal Regiment of Canada.

Why did he leave that band?

Why aren't his decades with that military unit not noted on his resume?

Did something else happen there?

I've tried official channels.

I've asked other former military band members.

They don't have the information.

And these are among the questions he won't answer.

So for now, it remains a mystery.

He's asked me not to contact him further.

I don't doubt this has been very difficult and painful for him and his family.

And that's something Jeannie addresses.

And I just feel a sense of absolute sadness for their family.

Pure sadness.

The teacher is what connected these women, but it's not why they've become friends.

I ask each of them to reflect on getting to know one another through this investigation.

Jackie, the diary keeper, starts.

I can't believe it's only been a year that we've all been talking.

I feel especially close to Allie.

I think that meeting you, Ali,

I don't know, for some reason your story really touched me and then the way you have

gathered so much strength and even become a different person in a year.

So

that's been

a really great part of a shitty situation.

The other thing is that for 20 years, I've been helping Jeannie carry this burden.

And I really feel like now there's just so many more people to

support her, and especially Anne-Marie.

The disappointing thing of finding out through this whole process is that if we were six boys or men sitting here, it would have a completely different outcome.

The police would be horrified, the press would be horrified, action would have been taken.

It's very disappointing to me that

at the number of different avenues you guys have taken through the legal system has not come to fruition.

I'm still angry about it.

I'm angry, and I think I'll be, maybe I won't be angry if I see him in court.

Maybe I'll still be, I don't know.

I don't know.

I can see Allie's moved by Jackie's words.

Thank you for what you said, Jackie.

I feel the same way.

I have been

educated

and surprised

by several parts of this process.

You said, like,

what's important to us?

And we all said it was

a sense of justice and a hope for change, right?

That's all that we wanted.

And initially, we all felt like he should have been in jail in 1974 and 76 and 78 and 80 and 82 and 84 and 87 and whatever.

But this is going to come out and I think there is some justice in that.

For her part, Jeannie still wants more.

She shared another difficult memory with us in the last episode, another indignity that Walker denied.

And she's not finished with the criminal justice system.

I need the police to arrest him and charge him with multiple counts of whatever they think it's okay to charge him with.

It's about flipping time that he faces the courts

because the law is there.

Ironically, the law is not there to protect us individually.

It's there to protect society, right?

And to to say when society has been wronged and I think it's time for the law to get involved and that's my demand

if the law does not deal with this situation then what does that say for the other thousands of female victims who were sexually abused by authority figures in those same decades I mean do they not care about us you know what does it leave us to say about the historical application of laws for these victims they're not all going to get podcasts like we did.

I think it always still comes back to that issue of consent.

The implication is because we're female, we consented.

This is Shiffon, the first known victim from 1974-75, the one he called jailbait.

The guys are getting action because no one could possibly believe they would consent, but everybody believes that we did.

As well as

the natural and the unnatural, right?

Rita, always the quiet one, has been listening to the others.

others now she cuts in i know you guys all want him to go to jail um but i don't want him to have any power over my life and i i don't care i don't if he continues to suffer i'm happy with that i don't believe all the things that he's telling us that he's you know that he's all alone and all that stuff i just i want peace i don't i just you know i think i've i've spent enough time thinking about him i want to still spend time with you guys.

I think that that's a great connection because that's never, it's never going to be out of my life, but I want peace i want it all to stop spinning i i hope i can be like genie and and anne-marie where i don't feel the guilt that's kind of my my goal um that would be ideal it'll come it'll come rita and allie it'll come that feeling

you'll learn to understand it better and you'll learn to place it in the right place give it time it'll come i promise genie rita's former bandmate in high school both of these women have independently filed civil lawsuits against their former school board, the music teacher's employer.

Mediation is scheduled for September 2023.

Can I say something?

I just want people to

believe the girls.

She means girls everywhere.

In our various conversations, these women have acknowledged their privilege in being able to tell their stories.

They realize there are so many others who can't speak out.

Women who can't afford to get support.

Women who are not believed.

I would like today for the girls to be believed because this is really painful and I really don't think anybody makes this up.

Well, thank you so much, all of you,

for everything all these many, many months.

One thing has to be said first, Julie.

One thing has to be said first that without you.

Anne-Marie, thank you.

Thank you for going to Julie.

Julie, thank you.

But I've always,

always

felt that I could trust you.

Safe.

I feel

really

terrific about all the work that you've done, Julie, and the effort you've put in, the care that you've shown.

And you, Anne-Marie.

Amazing what you're doing behind the scenes in all of this sort of political land and policy.

Amazing.

Thank you.

Yeah,

it's really making a difference.

Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Great.

All of you.

See you all.

It's goodbye to the Blipsters for now, but Anne-Marie and I are heading back out on the road, back to that unfinished business in her hometown.

Detectives arrive at Juliana Redding's house in Santa Monica, California.

There was no pulse.

We knew that it wasn't an accident.

An alleged murder for hire.

Fraud to the tune of $150 million.

I need to see the doctor, and I need to see the doctor right freaking now.

Do what he says, or else.

From Sony Music Entertainment and Western Sound, this is Doctor's Orders.

Available now on the binge.

Search for Doctor's Orders wherever you get your podcast to start listening today.

So

we're on Dawn Lens.

We're turning on to Danforth now.

Anne-Marie and I arrive in downtown Toronto.

This is our final trip together.

The streets are wet.

It's cold and drizzling.

So we're almost there.

We're almost there, yeah.

Almost at Eastern High School of Commerce, Anne-Marie's former school.

She didn't graduate from here.

She quit to get away from her band teacher.

How do you feel?

I feel really kind of sick.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I've been thinking about

this room my whole life, like off and on and especially lately trying to reconcile

what happened.

Yeah.

And I'm grateful that I'm allowed in.

Allowed into the school, into the music room.

When we started out today, Anne-Marie was relaxed and smiling.

I can see now she's switched into that familiar robot mode, a defense mechanism I've come to recognize and I completely understand.

Turn right onto Byron Avenue, then turn right onto Chatham Avenue.

Yeah, I'm grateful that I'm allowed in because I think it's important that I kind of

face it head-on and then

hopefully I can move forward

to turn right here.

one more thing to check off one more thing to check off yeah there's a school right there

it is not a nice day at all no it wasn't nice we were here before it wasn't i'm i think i'm gonna try and park in the parking lot of this school yeah

this parking lot reminds me of walker i know because he used to take me away here all the time

We know a lot more than we did last time when we were here, but I don't know if that makes a difference.

Does it make any difference in how you feel as we're going in?

I mean it makes me feel better at one level because I have all these sisters that been through the same thing as me and they provide me enormous comfort.

But it makes me sick to my stomach that administrators and others just

made so many bad decisions

and they didn't stop it when they had information.

So where do you want to go?

Once we get in there, where is it that you want to go?

What do you want to see?

Well, I want to go to the principal's office and I think I'm supposed to report there.

And then I want to go to his office, which is where he really started to groom me and basically take control.

And then I want to go into the music room.

I want to see the closet at the back where he sexually assaulted me.

Okay.

Okay, well, here we go.

We're gonna get out and into the school.

I put something in.

Yeah, I have an appointment at 3:30.

Oh, yeah, you come on in.

Thank you.

The halls are quiet.

The students have left for the day.

There are brief pleasantries with the school's current administrator.

Eastern Commerce is no longer a high school.

It's now the home of the First Nations School of Toronto, known as Wandering Spirit Survival School.

This building is almost 100 years old, and it's been going through some significant renovations lately.

Anne-Marie leads the way.

Two administrators and I follow.

She heads towards the music teacher's office.

Yeah, his office used to be here,

but it looks like that's been changed.

It's now an elevator.

Anne-Marie has a worried look.

What if the music room is gone too?

She tells the administrators why it's important she finds it.

I was assaulted in the music room.

We walk upstairs, then down a hallway, the one with floor-to-ceiling windows, looking out onto the parking lot.

I know where it is.

This is the music room.

The music room is still there.

It's under renovation, but it's there.

There's a long chalkboard, five white lines, a music staff are etched across the board.

But Anne-Marie walks directly towards a door in the wall.

She knows exactly where she's going.

She opens the door.

a closet.

She walks right in, and I follow.

So it's a closet and there's lots of shelving.

Was the shelving here before?

Yeah.

And it looks the same as what you remember.

Yeah.

And I was in here

putting instruments away or something.

He just came in and shut the door behind me.

Yeah.

Yeah, you can see all the shelves that would have might have had the instruments.

Yeah.

That hasn't changed.

This wall here is exactly the same.

Really?

Yeah, like those, Kate, the small shelves there are for trumpets and flutes and things, and the bigger ones, the horns were right on those big shelves there.

Yeah.

You look like you feel relieved.

Were you afraid that you weren't going to see the room or that you weren't?

I think so.

Yeah.

Yeah, I was afraid that I wasn't going to see the room.

Yeah.

It's here.

I mean, I feel my skin.

It's here and it happened.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I felt so humiliated and so

afraid.

And it's easier to understand when I see the room because it's just like a hole.

It's like a closet.

And I was trapped.

And

I have nightmares where I can't breathe.

And I know it's related to this.

And so I just feel

good that I can kind of face this place.

And

yeah.

But it's just a room.

It's just a room, yeah.

Yeah.

But probably the worst thing in my life happened in this room.

I know.

I know.

Yeah.

Yeah.

The administrators hang back, waiting out in the hallway.

They give us space, but we don't linger.

When she's seen enough, we head back out to join them.

They ask Anne-Marie if she's okay.

She says she is.

And she tells me she's ready to leave.

I'm happy that I got in the school and they let me in.

And so I think that

felt good.

Just the people that were there now.

acknowledging that something bad had happened there.

You don't, you know, we went in there, you said, I I feel like I'm going to cry, but I'm not.

And you don't often get emotional.

Is that just like a protection mechanism that you have now built in?

Yeah,

I feel kind of dead emotionally.

And I understand that to be a symptom of trauma.

But yeah, I feel...

I feel is physically ill.

I wish I could cry, but I just, it's hard for me to do.

Yeah.

but you were very strong to go in there today.

Thank you.

You were.

Yeah, I am.

I'm glad.

I really glad that I did.

Yeah.

Okay.

All right, we are going to head down the 401 back east to Ottawa.

Yeah, luckily the snow has stopped.

We've had to get this.

Every time we do this work together, the weather's bad.

I know.

I know.

Well, let's hope it holds up now.

Just days before the podcast production wraps up, Anne-Marie hears from another former high school bandmate.

This woman played French horn beside Anne-Marie when they were 16.

I call her.

So maybe you can tell me just about what you remember, you know, about Anne-Marie Robinson back in high school in Anneville.

She wanted me to know what she had witnessed in a hotel room on a band trip to Belleville in 1977.

The night Anne-Marie told a court she was raped.

This woman says a bunch of band kids were in the teacher's hotel room.

Doug Walker was kissing and groping Anne-Marie in front of everyone.

But really what made me profoundly sad was she was a potential witness in my trial.

You know, and whatever she had to say, the truth is important.

And nobody looked for her.

She has memories of how i was the next day that there's the fellow student says the next morning ann-marie appeared at breakfast distraught and robotic with a blank stare but it's too late for this witness these memories to help ann-marie's case there's no possible way now that they can be shared i mean with the court because the trial's over

After a 2021 preliminary hearing, a judge determined there was no evidence Anne-Marie had not consented to sex with her teacher teacher in that Belleville hotel room.

So the case never went to trial.

This is a witness and evidence the police never found because as far as Anne-Marie knows and files reveal, the police never looked.

Still, Anne-Marie sees it as validation.

I mean, I'm glad that there's a witness and I'm glad she remembers that,

but

It's a weird feeling to know something that was so impactful in your life and someone else has a memory of it.

You know, that's why the police, if they would investigate these cases thoroughly, they would know more.

It's yet another new detail in a growing body of corroboration and documentation.

Well, it's just so frustrating, right?

It's just so frustrating.

Over the past 18 months of this investigation, I've found evidence that 15 women were sexually exploited, harassed, and or assaulted by the same teacher.

William Douglas Walker.

I've spoken to most of those women.

It all started around 1974, Walker's first year of teaching.

And from the start, superiors were told about his sexual encounters with kids, students.

Subsequent administrators were told again and again.

Like when I think about

Allie being abused in 1987,

I'm furious about that.

Because, you know, after he was reported in the early 70s, then I was abused and then in

82 by another student,

Why was she you know put in that situation?

Why was he allowed to go on field trips with kids?

Ali's experience in 1987 is the last we know of, but in 1988 the music teacher was still being warned to stop his inappropriate behavior with teen girls.

After that he moved schools four more times.

We don't know why.

Then by 2001 he was banned from teaching.

So far any attempts to have this former teacher convicted have failed.

And most of the survivors say success will only come when they see him behind bars.

But that's not the only measurement here.

Because on this journey, something pretty wonderful has happened.

Come on, Arch!

Come!

Come see!

Somebody's at the door.

What's at the door?

Who's that?

See, you're don't bark at her anymore.

Come on, Arch.

How are you?

Hello.

That's my favorite puppy.

Oh, he's got you a ball.

Archie the Aussie Doodle has come to know Anne-Marie Robinson well.

He doesn't even bark when she arrives at my door, but he's happily wagging and wiggling.

How are you doing?

Good.

How are you?

Good.

Come on in.

Thank you.

Okay.

Can I get you coffee?

Yeah, coffee.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Okay.

Do you take milk?

Just a tiny bit, yeah.

Just a tiny bit.

Okay, it's just going to.

This is where we first met in 2020 on my front porch in Ottawa.

Archie was barking barking at the squirrels.

At our first meeting, I couldn't see the deputy minister Anne-Marie used to be.

I saw someone who was broken and lost.

She hid under oversized clothes.

Long bangs hung over her face like a shield.

Since then, I've witnessed a metamorphosis.

Today she arrives in fashionable pink pants and a deep purple blouse.

I can see her green eyes.

In fact, they sparkle with a different kind of energy.

The confident leader has reemerged, but this process wasn't easy.

I took her down roads that I know caused more trauma.

Of course,

that's part of it.

But

I think you have to walk through it.

You have to be strong.

You have to do it when you're ready, but I think you have to walk through the pain.

And I've been able to let go of the shame and any guilt that I had associated with it.

When you look back at the goals we sort of set, you set from the beginning, do you feel that we've met the goals?

Oh, absolutely.

Yeah.

I mean, I think we've exceeded the goals.

I mean,

we found a lot of victims, and I have seen those women come to life and to change, and I've seen them all grow so much.

And so that's wonderful.

But the big kind of nice surprise for me was the policy work.

It's funny because

I did policy my whole career in government and I was was a deputy minister and it's almost a comforting escape for me to kind of put that hat on and see this as a problem that I want to help fix for the whole country.

Anne-Marie still contemplates going back to the police and maybe even lodging a complaint with the Canadian Human Rights Commission.

Yeah, I've actually had that in my mind for a while.

I mean it doesn't seem right to me.

that they're not applying the law equally to males and females.

It's sad if that's

I mean, we shouldn't have to go through a human rights process on equal application on the basis of sex.

That's a huge policy problem that exists and governments need to fix this.

And how much of telling your story is part of your justice?

It's everything because it's what I have.

It's healed me and it's healing me.

I mean, I was like a little, I thought I was everything to this story.

I thought this story was all about me.

And now I realize I'm just a small piece of this really big story that spanned, we still don't know how many years.

My investigation started with just one woman.

Now Anne-Marie Robinson stands shoulder to shoulder with so many others.

And not just those who survived abuse at the hands of the banned teacher, but other girls who became victims of men in positions of authority.

It doesn't matter that that she needed attention.

It doesn't matter that she didn't scream or run away.

It doesn't matter that it took her years to understand what had actually happened and to do something about it.

She's done something now for herself and for others.

And you know, it's not just about justice, it's about understanding and learning.

It's kind of funny because if you think about the end of your life, I don't want to be too dramatic about this, but

if I died tomorrow, I would be at peace because I did something about this.

I don't want to die tomorrow.

I have all kinds of things I want to do, but yeah, I feel like a sense of peace that I've actually never had in my life.

The band Teacher was investigated, reported, written, and hosted by me, Julie Irton.

Allison Cook was the story and script editor, producer, sound designer, and mixer.

Felice Chin was our executive producer and story editor.

Sean Lloyd was our coordinating producer.

Eve St.

Laurent was our legal advisor.

Jennifer Chen, Amanda Pfeffer, and Jen White provided valuable production advice.

Senior web producer Jen Beard developed our website.

And special thanks to the folks at CBC Podcasts for all their support.

Managing editor of CBC Ottawa is Drake Fenton.

Ruth Sotu is senior managing director for the Ontario Region.

If you like this podcast, I have another original investigation that might interest you.

That's the band Played On, Season 1.

All of the episodes are available right now, wherever you get your podcasts.

If you or someone you know has been sexually abused, community resources can help.

Reach out to a trusted person, sexual assault center, or rape crisis center in your area.

For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca/slash podcasts.