Former Toronto radio host fires back at co-host's abuse allegations at human rights tribunal

Former Q107 innkeeper john lackland Derringer testified at a human rights tribunal audience wed, alleging his former co-host Jennifer Valentyne was unprepared at act, "obsessed with appearances" and did not understand radio as a medium as compared to her former role in television. 

That testimony came in response to accusations Valentyne made as part of her complaint to the tribunal, alleging verbal abuse and gender-based discrimination while she was employed on Corus Entertainment's Derringer in the Morning from 2017 to 2019.

Derringer said he never once touched Valentyne, nor did he watch pornography in-studio at work, as she previously alleged before the tribunal.

"That did not happen," Derringer said.

The longtime radio personality also alleged his former co-host did not care about the show, wouldn't promote it to her sizable social media following and generally did not put in the effort he wanted to see at work.

"It was like she just didn't want to do anything," he said.

The hearing at the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal comes after the well-known radio show was placed on hiatus in May 2022. At the time, Corus Entertainment said it was pulling the show off the air amid an external ethics and conduct review.

Three days prior, Valentyne posted a video that was widely shared online condemning the way she says she was treated by her former employer and co-workers. 

Later, in August 2022, the radio station posted a statement online saying Derringer and Q107 had agreed to "part ways." 

Vaping in-studio while the show was on-air was also on the list of allegations made by Valentyne, something she previously said impacted her voice and left her with chronic smoker's cough. 

Derringer testified that initially, Valentyne said she was fine with people vaping around her — though he said he later recognized it was the wrong thing to do, regardless.

"I did it, I'm embarrassed about it," he said Wednesday.

Valentyne also previously alleged before the tribunal that Derringer had watched pornography at work, something he testified he has never done "in his life." 

Derringer did say, however, that as he was working for a station with a predominantly male demographic of listeners, he and his colleagues on the show did sometimes visit websites that displayed risque photos while searching for topics to discuss on-air.

"I will say, for context, did we go to websites for content that did have pictures of women in bikinis? Yes we did," he said.

"Were there two naked people having intercourse? Absolutely not."

Derringer also laid out some of the pressures he saw Q107 facing around 2017 when Valentyne was hired. Ratings at that time were "concerning," he said, as the station was losing ground to rival station Boom 97.3. 

Q107's listenership was male-oriented "to the point that it was a problem," Derringer said — and so the thought around the show was adding a woman to the on-air product might help draw in more female listeners.

"The station was floundering," he said.

While testifying about other on-air personalities who had departed during his years on the show, Derringer said he knew that he was "very hard on people," which sometimes led to people being moved or let go from roles on the show.

"If they weren't working, they weren't staying. That's just the way it was," he said. "There was nothing that was going to stop me from doing the very best radio that we could do." 

"It's how I survived for 40 years."

The hearing is set to continue Thursday.

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