We had an opportunity to see Babel’s Member of Parliament in action last week. He appeared before our presentation to the Canadian Radio-Television Telecommunications Commission in Gatineau, Quebec. It was the hearing on Bell Canada Enterprises purchase of complete control of CTVglobemedia. Mr. Brown was very much in favour of the proposal.
Mind you, Mr. Brown is in favour of any communications company that will give him some more publicity. In his letter on behalf of Barrie’s /A Channel getting fee-for-carriage from cable and satellite distribution companies last year, he gave a glowing report on how wonderful a job that the CTV secondary station did on local activities. He was not specific and you could not be too sure what he was writing about. Come to think of it: that letter read like it was written by /A Channel.
This time, he was more specific. It was the first time we had heard him say more than two sentences. He garbles when he talks. This is because he talks faster than he thinks. This little talk sounded like it was crafted by the Conservative government’s Heritage Minister’s office.
It was relatively well done. He harkened back to his dear grandmother watching him on television at Barrie city council when he was a councilor so that she could tell him what he was doing wrong. He went on in that folksy vein to tell the CRTC commissioners what a wonderful job /A Channel does on local coverage.
He took about seven of the ten minutes he was allotted. He was not too bad. As someone who teaches public speaking, we noted that he needs to join Toastmasters to learn to stop grunting while fishing for the next thing he is supposed to say. He also needs to enunciate better. It is fine to speak as fast as he does, providing you can still be understood by your listeners.
But as we explained to the commissioners after he left, it is also necessary to be accurate in what you say. I pointed out to the commissioners that the channel in Barrie that does a very thorough job in local coverage—the one that covers city council for the grandmothers and provides excellent coverage of our Barrie Colts Ontario Hockey League team—is the Rogers Cable community channel.
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