LETTER FROM MONTREAL
It was in a video posted on August 15, on the social network Twitter, that Lisa LaFlamme, star presenter of the evening news of the English channel CTV News, announced the news to her viewers. Filmed in her chalet facing the camera, white voice and shortness of breath, unusual for this great professional, she declares: “It is with great emotion that I wanted to tell you that after thirty-five years of career, I was informed on June 29 that Bell Media [propriétaire de la chaîne de télévision] chose to terminate my contract. I was flabbergasted, I remain in shock and very saddened by this decision (…). It’s not my choice. »
The dismissal of Lisa LaFlamme, 58, at the helm since 2011 of the most watched television news in Canada, is causing shock waves across the country. Her video, relayed nearly five million times, ignites social networks and reactions of indignation flock to support the one who, throughout her career, from all-terrain reporter to presenter, has collected professional recognition awards.
If the journalist does not say a word about the reasons for her dismissal, contenting herself with citing the one put forward by her employer – “business decision” – very quickly, an article from the English daily The Globe and Mail reveals the pot of roses.
A former colleague reports to the newspaper a remark heard a few weeks before the eviction of the star of the info. “Who approved of Lisa’s decision to keep her gray hair? », would have launched Michael Melling, vice-president of information at Bell Media, seeing it on the air. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Lisa LaFlamme had indeed had to give up, like many other women, regular dyes at her hairdresser. By 2020, her hair had gone from a flamboyant mahogany brown to a very natural silver fox.
White hair, gray hair: it would therefore be for having dared to assume her age that the presenter would have been thanked, even more than for having opposed her direction on the reduction of means of reporting or having displayed differences on priorities on the air, arguments also mentioned by the press. The accusations “ageism”discrimination linked to age, mixed with that of sexism, are beating down on the company.
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Women journalists across the country close ranks. Her colleague from the French-language public network Radio Canada, Céline Galipeau, 65, suggests that “all the journalists wear a gray wig in support”while some recall that his predecessor, Lloyd Robertson, had the right to keep his chair until the respectable age of 77, largely after seeing his head turn white under the harness.
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