Why I quit my job

By Kai Nagata

Until Thursday, I was CTV's Quebec City Bureau Chief, based at the National Assembly, mostly covering politics. It's a fascinating beat -- the most interesting provincial legislature in Canada, and the stories coming out of there lately have been huge. The near-implosion of the Parti Quebecois has kept the press gallery hopping well into summer. If you're not from Quebec, it's hard to explain the place the National Assembly holds in the popular imagination -- but suffice to say that within francophone journalistic circles it carries more prestige than Parliament Hill. I had the privilege to be working next to several of the sharpest reporters in the country.

"An Albatross and an embarrassment."

On Saturday, that's how Conservative MP Candice Hoeppner labelled the gun registry during her address at the Ontario Federation of Anglers and Hunters Annual General Meeting.

As millions of Canadians and Americans (and others worldwide) sat down last night to watch the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games, CTV and NBC seem to have made a barbaric and Machiavellian ratings decision to broadcast the Olympic equivalent of a snuff-film.

While CTV and NBC have made attempts to justify their decision to broadcast the death of a Georgian luger Nodar Kumaritashvili, one really needs to wonder (little) if the nationality of Kumaritashvili had been Canadian or American, would the network executives have made a different decision.