‘We loved Charles at Shaw’

The regulatory group at Shaw Communications Inc. found out Monday morning, before going on a panel at a CRTC hearing in Gatineau, Que., that a key member of their team had died. Charles King, 47, worked in Ottawa as Shaw's vice-president of government relations, and had fallen ill with cancer last year for the second time after successfully fighting it in 2002. Formerly a Liberal party staffer, the director of government relations at the Canadian Cable Television Association and, more recently, a principal with Earnscliffe Strategy Group, King joined Shaw in 2009. He was well-liked in Ottawa political circles and known, including by this reporter, as one who preferred to remain out of the spotlight and had a low tolerance for hypocrisy or the silliness of Ottawa. Anyone who knew him also knew his playful cursing. "Fluently bilingual, brought up in Northern Ontario, he could tell you to take a hike (or worse expletive), charmingly, in French and English," Toronto Star columnist Susan Delacourt wrote this week in a blog posting, adding that the issue at hand was never about himself. “If you asked how he was doing, health-wise, he'd say something optimistic and shrug off any melodrama." She wrote that Charles would have been happier if she forgot he was dealing with the disease. “I know it bothered him to think that people were only looking at him and only seeing the big scary word, cancer, written across his forehead (metaphorically speaking.) Charles just wanted everyone to act normally around him; no bullshit,” she wrote. Peter Bissonnette, president of Shaw, wrote on Delacourt's blog this week that King fought back cancer, his wife Kelly Mounce at his side, “with such courage and humility.” Bissonnette said he wrote to King two weeks ago “and true to form he told me matter-of-factly how he was doing and then commented at how lovely spring was going to be in Ottawa. We loved Charles at Shaw and will miss him so much.” “I used to walk up to the Hill with him, and he knew everybody,” Ken Stein, Shaw's vice-president of regulatory affairs, told The Wire Report Monday following Shaw's appearance at the CRTC hearing. “I had trouble keeping up with him, because he was a really active, dynamic guy. He had a big, wonderful heart,” Stein said. “He had an amazing ability, as a government relations person, to be able to reach out to all of the parties.” Stein added, his voice faltering: “He was just a great friend.” A public memorial will be held Friday, 4-6 p.m. in the Adam Room of the Chateau Laurier, followed by a reception at 6 p.m. at Metropolitain Brasserie. —With reporting by Simon Doyle at sdoyle@thewirereport.ca and copy editing by Nicholas Kyonka at nkyonka@thewirereport.ca

‘We loved Charles at Shaw’

Broadcast | April 30, 2013

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