The lady and I were driving to supper at the Freehouse yesterday, listening to the CBC as we went. It was around five p.m., the news was on and a story about comments made by Senator Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu came up. If you’ve been following the national news, you’ll know all about this already, but at the time, I hadn’t heard anything about it yet.
The radio piece — which I can’t find online, so you’ll have to read this for more information and just trust me that they were broadcasting about it yesterday — started in with some quotes where the senator was clarifying his position on the death penalty.
Then, as I remember it, the voice-over suggested that Boisvenu might have a different solution for Canada’s prisons in mind. The piece cut to him talking in French, none of which I caught or understood. At this point, I had no idea what was going to come next.
They read the English translation: “Basically I think that every murderer should have a rope in his cell and he can decide on his own life. But I’m against the death penalty.”
Bam. Thanks to CBC Radio 1 for blowing an unprepared mind a little yesterday. I think I even laughed out loud I was so shocked that anyone would say that in front of a microphone.
The whole experience was one that I couldn’t have with T.V. or print or internet journalism — radio has a way of blindsiding people that’s hard to replicate. If I had read a headline or seen a news crawler at the bottom of a screen — or maybe even properly heard the lead-in for this piece — this wouldn’t have had nearly as much impact. As it stands, I was bowled over by Boisvenu’s incredibly stupid statement, almost as if I were hearing it live.
