Why Not In Winnipeg? The Fifth Estate : Season 47 Episode 8

More than 125 women, including 60 Canadians, have now accused disgraced multimillionaire fashion mogul Peter Nygard of rape and sexual assault, but it wasn't that long ago he was celebrated in his hometown. When I lived in Winnipeg in the 2010s, his face and company were everywhere, whether it was his photo in the newspaper cutting the ribbon for a new store with local leaders, events he held to promote his latest donation to cancer research or countless billboards he rented and plastered with youthful musclebound images of himself. Then, in 2010, The Fifth Estate broadcast its first investigation into Nygard, showing widespread allegations of workplace abuse, sexual harassment and sexual misconduct against him. And still, as recently as 2018, 1,800 of the city’s who’s who came out to celebrate his company’s 50th anniversary at a massive gala. The local paper described it as a party that would “rival any Hollywood bash.” The city’s current mayor, Brian Bowman, and the province’s current premier, Heather Stefanson, both attended. So in 2021, when one by one, the women who recently reported allegations of sexual assault against Nygard in Winnipeg started to hear their cases wouldn’t be prosecuted, they told us they weren’t totally shocked. And then The Fifth Estate broke the story in October about charges Nygard was about to face in Toronto. That raised even more questions about the lack of charges in Winnipeg. We knew we had to dig deeper into his past in his hometown. Our investigation reveals, for the first time, in all eight cases referred to prosecutors in Winnipeg, no charges will be laid. In our story, you will hear from four of the eight women, and we document a pattern of Nygard avoiding prosecution in his hometown going back more than 50 years. Nygard denies all of the allegations against him. But at this point, Nygard has faced sex trafficking charges in New York and sexual assault charges in Toronto. So … why not in Winnipeg?