KINSELLA: LaFlamme no newsroom rebel or troublemaker in my experience

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Okay, right here’s my Lisa LaFlamme story.

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And, in my defence, you shouldn’t get mad at me for including to the towering pile of tales and opinion columns concerning the former CTV Information anchor and her employer. I imply, everybody else has stored this prototypical Summertime scandal alive for week after week, so why can’t Yours Actually have some enjoyable, too?

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So right here goes.

Years in the past, for years, I used to be on Canada AM each week. Jean Chretien was nonetheless (blessedly) operating issues, so I used to be nonetheless (remarkably) a Liberal. I used to be the Liberal on Canada AM and plenty of the opposite political stuff they did. It was enjoyable.

The one who ran the CTV political panel stuff, in these days, was Lisa LaFlamme. She didn’t have a lot gray hair, then, and neither did I. LaFlamme was succesful, and impressive in a great way.

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The panel was enjoyable, as TV political panels all the time are. There’s plenty of good-natured jousting, and reciting of speaking factors, and competing for airtime — and the occasional burst of bona fide ardour. Folks in Ottawa suppose these panels are an excellent huge deal, however in Timmins or Purple Deer, no one actually provides a rat’s ass what a bunch of hacks suppose. Ottawa speaking about Ottawa, and many others.

Anyway. One time, we Liberals had been doing a little gun factor. I don’t bear in mind what it was, however you will be fairly assured it was rigorously designed to immediate an overreaction by Conservatives, and thereby alienate feminine suburban voters in droves. (It really works, each time.) So Lisa wished to speak about that, and the opposition to it.

At one level, I disclosed that I’m a gun proprietor, as I all the time do as a result of I’m. After which I referred to the spit-flecked histrionics coming from the gun foyer as quite a lot of screeching and braying from “gun nuts.” Quote unquote.

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Effectively, holy moly Mom Cannoli, it was like I relieved myself in the course of the CTV inexperienced room (met my pal Gene Simmons there one morning, however that’s an X-rated story for one more day). Or that I’d taken Lloyd Robertson’s parking spot out entrance (he’s such a pleasant man, he wouldn’t have cared).

I digress, as common. Anyway, I used to be on stay TV, however I might hear a little bit of a kerfuffle throughout me within the studio. Somebody rushed up and handed Lisa LaFlamme a bit of paper.

I’d prefer to say she learn it like she was a hostage, however she didn’t. She learn it like she meant it. Like she agreed.

“CTV Information,” she intoned, “needs to state that we don’t condone or agree with what Warren Kinsella stated about lawful gun house owners.”

That’s not word-for-word. I used to be on TV, in spite of everything, and I wasn’t taking notes to be used in a years-later opinion column. All I stated was: “Wow.” What I wished to say was: “Effectively, look who’s the company toady, now.”

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And that’s the purpose, a few years later. The notion that Lisa LaFlamme was flamed by CTV as a result of she was a insurgent or a troublemaker is, to me, simply plain flawed. In my very own direct, private expertise, Lisa LaFlamme was extremely attuned to the whims of the oldsters up within the govt suite.

Which nearly actually signifies that she actually, actually did get canned for the worst of causes: that she was getting older. That she was going grey.

Was sexism within the combine? In all probability, as a result of her (now doomed) successor is a man. Was it one thing else, one thing we don’t find out about? Probably. Within the media enterprise, you may go from hero to zero fairly darn quick.

However the notion that Lisa LaFlamme walked the plank as a result of she was a valiant newsroom resistance fighter? Based mostly on my expertise, not an opportunity. You don’t get to be prime minister by being silly, and also you don’t get to be a nationwide information anchor with out sprucing just a few derrieres alongside the best way.

Nope. Lisa LaFlamme was canned as a result of she obtained previous.

Which is silly, as a result of the thousands and thousands of parents who watched her on TV? They’re getting previous, too. And so they don’t wish to be discriminated in opposition to due to it.

Similar to Lisa LaFlamme.