Canadian women are joining those who have accused disgraced Hollywood mogul, Harvey Weinstein, of sexual harassment after a New York Times investigation revealed he’d received dozens such accusations — ostensibly avoiding consequences — over the course of decades.

A spokesperson for Weinstein has denied that any of the allegations constitute sexual harassment, saying that all of his contact with his named accusers was consensual.

Montreal actor Erika Rosenbaum told CBC’s The Current Friday that she experienced both “inappropriate” meetings with Weinstein and a sexual assault since she first met the producer as a young actress in L.A.

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The assault, she said, took place in a Toronto hotel room during the Toronto International Film Festival, years after they first met.

“He grabs me by — he holds me by the back of the neck and faces me to the mirror and very quietly tells me that he just wants to look at me and he starts to masturbate standing behind me,” she said in the CBC interview.

She said she never told anyone what happened because she felt ashamed.

A TIFF spokesperson said they were unable to immediately respond to the Star’s questions.

Mia Kirshner, a Canadian actor and activist, also spoke out about Weinstein Friday, saying she went through an “ordeal in a hotel room where he attempted to treat me like chattel that could be purchased,” in a Globe and Mail op-ed.

She didn’t go into detail of the incident, saying the problem of sexual harassment in the entertainment industry runs deeper than one man and must be addressed with leadership by unions like the Screen Actors Guild and the Alliance of Canadian cinema, Television and Radio Artists.

ACTRA released a statement on Twitter Friday pledging to “build on what we are already doing” to keep members safe from “prevalent… predatory behaviour” in the industry.

The Weinstein allegations have been a catalyst for Canadian women in the entertainment industry to speak out about their experiences with sexual harassment in the entertainment industry as a whole.

Liona Boyd, whose long career as a classical guitarist was marked by unwelcome sexual advances by predatory men, has also been speaking out. She has never made an allegation against Weinstein.

“The thing that strikes me as strange is there must have been people who knew what was going on. They were the enablers in a way but they were probably also fearing for their jobs,” she said in an interview with the Star Friday.

The “casting couch” mentality she described, where male producers in Los Angeles “dangled” opportunities before her to lure her into private meetings where they suggested sex, echo many of the accounts of Weinstein’s behaviour, and add to a picture of Hollywood as a cesspool for sexual exploitation of women.

The experiences “sickened” Boyd, and drove her to return to Toronto in the eighties.

Boyd said that while Toronto was an improvement on L.A., she still faced sexual harassment in this city.

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She described one occasion in the 80s where a “well known television” host she declined to name invited her to his hotel room for a meeting.

“Sure enough he grabbed my hand and put it, you can imagine where, and I said “there’s no way.” I left and never spoke to him again,” she said.

Boyd said it’s “high time” for people to be talking about sexual harassment in the entertainment industry, and that it likely occurs in other industries too.

“This behaviour just has to change,” she said. “It’s disgraceful.”