4 - Wednesday, July 6, 1994 - North Shore News

STRICTLY PERSONAL

ONE OF my first assign- ments as 2 television reporter was to follow a chap named Lucien Bouchard along a river that a group of activists were lobbying to make into a park, Everyone was hoping that Bouchard would spring for some cash.

At that time, he was the federal Minister of Environment, a heavy- weight lawyer buddy of Brian Mulroney’s from — where else? — Quebec.

All knew about him was that he had served in Paris for a while as Canadian ambassador. Being a friend of Brian’s obviously had its advantages.

I must say 1 wasn’t immediately awestruck by Lucien’s charisma. In fact, he struck me as an unctuous small town wheeler-dealer, puffed up by the ego-stroke of being fol- lowed around by a couple of dozen media types, being publicly sucked up to by the lobbyists, and getting to say his piece into a thicket of micro- phones.

At least his English was good enough to be usable for the six o’clock news. He’s fairly short and

his black hair kept flopping over to one side of his forehead, He'd brush it away iupatiently, but he was enjoying the chance to make a ges- ture, any gesture, even if il was just the gesture of pushing his hair back.

What a phony, | thought.

After milking the walking media tour for all it was worth, he stood on the edge of a cliffoverlooking the park and announced that the federal government would throw in $10 nillion to get tre ball rolling.

The lobbyists chewed up the mikes babbling, about his greatness and generosity. and what a friend the environment had in Saint Lucien.

Linterviewed him three times in his capacity as Environment Minister. He was a sweet interview. Many Gallic shrugs. Much running of the fingers through the unruly hair. A habit of getting of f the houk by throwing back witty rhetorical questions, cather than answering.

But he gave a great 30-second clip, and in television you forgive many things, if you get even one decent clip.

Lucien had a nice gravelly purr, and, even if he was looking up at you, he managed te indicate by his body language and facial expression that he was actually looking down.

In one of my encounters with him, he gave a speech in a rather large theatre. This time, the only media people present were me and my cameraman. The audience was sparse, and all clustered in the first couple of rows.

In preparation for this moment, my cameraman, who happens to be black-skinned, had attached a bat- tery-operated microphone to the podium. Alas, halfway through Lucien’s speech, the battery went dead.

1 wanted to just wave my hand and say, “Hey, Mister Bouchard, could you just hang on a second while we fix our battery?” But I knew him well enough by then to know he'd get his feelings hurt. He would take it as rude, or patroniz-

ing, or upsetting to his dignity

The battery. after all, was the cameraman's problem, not mine. ft therefore fell to him, when | explained [couldn't just interrupt the Great One in fall oratorical fight, to come up with a solution.

So he set down his camera and snenked up to the podium, trying not te block anyone’s view, and doing his dead level best not to serew up Lucien's Now,

Lucien was so wrapped up in the significance of what he was saying that he did not notice my camera - man’s approach, crouched over as he was — although everyone else in the theatre did. We were all waiting to see what would happen.

Would Lucien actually just shut up for a moment and Iet a poor cam- eraman fix his equipment, or would he keep ranting?

He kept ranting. My cameraman, standing just at his shoulder, reached over delicately to grab the malfunctioning mike, but forgot about it being taped down, so that the darn thing fell on the ground. My friend immediately dropped to his knees to get his hands on it and quickly repair it.

We now had the spectacle of a black man on his knees at the feet of a white man at a podium, while the rest of us, entirely white, as I recall, sat and stared in horror —- by now, really wondering how Lucien was going to handle this.

He did not stop talking! He didn’t miss a beat.

t remember thinking to myself, here is a guy who is focused but not very perceptive.

Either that or his way of coping is denial. Or maybe he’s just so wrapped up in the magic of his own voice, he doesn’t notice stuff going on in front of his nose.

Or maybe it’s all just beneath him. Maybe he didn’t see anything strange in the situation!

The last time I got to ask Lucien anything was at a tele-conference beamed out of Ottawa.

I found myself addressing a larg-

West Vancouver man jailed in burglary case

A 20-YEAR-OLD West Vancouver man was recently jailed a total of 90 days in connection with breach and burglary charges.

Stephen Robert Hodges pleaded guilty to the following West Vancouver charges:

Hi burglary and theft at a business in the 2500-bIk. of Marine Drive on April 27;

@ breaching probation between April 25 and April 28 by consum- ing alcohol;

@ breaching a court-ordered under-

taking on May 7 by consuming alcohol.

Hodges also received 12 months’ probation.

He was required to pay $620 compensation in connection with the burglary charge.

er-than-life video image of his face. What asked him was why we should trust him to protect our

Canadian and global environment if

all he was going to do was go back to Quebec and work for the sepa- ratist cause?

His answer was a rambling, long-winded, and quite incoherent monologue about how the environ- ment was the most important thing of all, and this was what “ordinary Canadians” and “even women” had told him.

The implication was that he was already carrying the burden of the world on his shoulders, why would he bother himself about such a pal- try matter as Quebec's political future?

A couple of weeks later, he resigned his post, completely con- tradicting what he'd just finished saying to me -— and, oh so sincere- ly, by the way. I have it on tape.

The point? The guy is a compul- sive liar.

Period.

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