TORONTO – Lisa LaFlamme had just settled into the back of the cafe when two women in quick succession approached her. You are beautiful, said the first, while the other sent Miss LaFlamme a note on yellow lined paper.
“Thanks for being ‘you’,” read the message, written in neat cursive, by “an admirer.”
The fleeting interactions, which took place during a recent interview in Toronto with 58-year-old LaFlamme, are filled with the unspoken. Perhaps nothing more needs to be said about three women of the same age who happened to meet in Toronto, half a year after Mrs. overthrow as one of the nation’s top news anchors amid accusations of ageism and sexism.
“Everyone is so kind,” said Miss LaFlamme, with tears in her eyes. “The support is amazing. It was a real shock to me.”
A household name in Canada for decades, Mrs. LaFlamme is out of the ordinary fired last summer by CTV, the country’s largest private television network, after what her employer described as a “business decision” to receive programming “in another direction.” Although her national bulletin at CTV is one of most view and she won a National Award for the best messenger just a few months earlier, Miss LaFlamme had to sign without a proper goodbye.
Instead, in a makeshift, dimly lit house that lasted two minutes videotapes uploading to her Twitter account, she said, “At 58, I still think I have more time to tell more stories that impact our everyday lives.”
Her departure sparked multifaceted debates across Canada, especially after The Globe and Mail reported that it was possible. regarding LaFlamme’s hair – something she chose to fade during the pandemic when hair salons and other businesses closed. The owner of the network, Bell Media, denied that “age, gender and gray hair” were factors, appointing a 39-year-old male reporter, Omar Sachedina, as her successor.
“It was completely unexpected that they decided to terminate her contract early because there is no clear evidence that CTV is specifically falling or actually doing poorly,” he said. Christopher Waddell, professor emeritus of journalism at Carleton University and a former news producer at CBC, the public broadcaster. He added that Ms. LaFlamme’s 11-year tenure as host of “CTV National News,” the broadcaster’s flagship newsletter, has been seen as a ratings success, especially compared with its main rival at CBC.
The owner of CTV did not return multiple emails and calls requesting comment for this article. Ms LaFlamme declined to provide details about her dismissal, citing a separation agreement between the two parties.
Immediately following the controversy over her dismissal, Mirko Bibic, chief executive officer of Bell Canada, issue a statement that said, in part, “the story goes that Lisa’s age, gender, or gray hair influenced the decision. I am pleased that this is not the case.
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In the nearly two-hour interview, Ms. LaFlamme spoke of emerging after half a year of silence, demonstrating a journalist’s understanding and resignation that her departure would overshadow her long career. was marked by news coverage in New York a day later. September 11 attacks and numerous trips to Afghanistan and Iraq.
“Most of the comments I’ve ever received were not about the months in Baghdad or Afghanistan, or any story, but about when I had gray hair – nothing at all,” LaFlamme said. “And I’ll say this, 98% positive, except for a couple of men and women — it’s funny how I can actually remember that — but they were instantly destroyed on social media because women supported them. for women.”
Ms LaFlamme said she has yet to map out her professional life in the coming years. But her calendar is chock full of long-term commitments to help other women, including a public talk about Prepare for success, a private organization that provides free professional clothing to women. Ms. LaFlamme is also planning a week-long trip to Tunisia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo to make short documentaries about African female journalists for Human Rights Journalistan organization based in Toronto.
She shares a home in Toronto with her husband, Michael Cooke, former editor-in-chief of The Toronto Star, but still regularly visits her hometown, Kitchener, Ontario, a small city 60 miles southwest of Toronto, where her mother and Her sisters are still alive.
Growing up there, she attended a Roman Catholic school for girls and often came home for lunch with her three sisters and parents, both of whom were “news junkies”.
“My father was a contractor and would come home for lunch every day, and I was in elementary school, and the conversation revolved around morning talk shows and topics of discussion,” Ms. LaFlamme said. . “And, of course, the last 15 minutes of lunch is Fred Flintstone.”
Eager to explore the world beyond Kitchener, she received an offer through her school to work as a nanny for two years in France. Unable to make any French friends at the time, she says the experience helped her understand the feeling of alienation some of the immigrants to Canada – “not meeting someone in the country.” in which you live”.
After graduating from college in Ottawa, Ms. LaFlamme landed a part-time job at a CTV branch in her hometown after waiting six hours — no appointment — outside the news director’s office.
She holds “living memories of not being taken seriously” as a female reporter – as she walks past an office in which three senior managers are “watching and laughing at each other.” in her stories. Or the time a male co-worker commented on a navy blue dress she had handpicked during a trip to Paris: “How can anyone take you seriously in that outfit?” she remembered he told her.
Ms LaFlamme said: ‘Just a classic navy blue suit, knee length skirt, nothing, nothing, nothing sexy. “I wanted a navy blue suit because I think it equates to professionalism.”
In the newsroom in the 1990s, she recalls, pictures of women in revealing clothes cut from the local tabloid hung on the wall of the editorial room.
Over the years, she received letters from two male colleagues apologizing for the way they had treated her, she said.
“I don’t know if they went through the 12-step program,” she said.
Her career skyrocketed after she joined the CTV network in 1997 and quickly shortlisted potential successors to Lloyd Robertson, CTV’s top curator for 35 years until when he retired in 2011 at the age of 77, when Mrs. LaFlamme replaced him.
The National Post, a national newspaper, stripped LaFlamme of her chance in 2001 by commenting that she was “famous for looking better in real life than on TV.” A veteran TV news executive recalled in an article in The Toronto Star that he once tried to hire Miss LaFlamme, but was rebuffed by his boss, who “don’t like her hair.”
A decade after her successful tenure as CTV’s top presenter, LaFlamme faced a predicament during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020 as hair salons closed. She has dyed her premature gray hair since her 20s. She brought Nice ‘n Easy over-the-counter dye with her when reporting trips – dyed her hair in the women’s restroom at Kandahar Airport and in a bunker in Baghdad where brown water came out of a faucet protruding from the wall.
At the start of the pandemic, Ms. LaFlamme masked the gray with spray dye.
Ms LaFlamme said: ‘There’s hair dye on my pillowcase – and I’m also menopausal and night sweats – and the pillowcase is disgusting.
She said she started graying her hair during the second wave of the pandemic, inspired by a sister who did the same and a female boss who endorsed the decision.
The response, she said, has been very positive. In the year-end summary programmeShe joked, “Honestly, if I had known that lockdown could unleash that front, I would have done it a lot sooner.”
But the decision was criticized by the head of CTV News at the time, who, according to the Globe and the letter, was asked in a meeting that the decision “to let Lisa’s hair go gray”. Ms. LaFlamme also disagreed sharply with her boss about coverage and resources, according to The Globe.
As the interview ended, Miss LaFlamme, checking her phone, frowned at the devastation her new Chocolate Lab puppy had wreaked in her living room – a chewed-up jute rug . She needs to take care of the dog and prepare for the Dress for Success talk in two days.
“It’s an organization that really helps women get back into the workforce and over the years I’ve been donating clothes to the organization,” she said. “Isn’t that funny?”
