Blogger Charles LeBlanc makes the front page of The Aquinian Newspaper!!!!!

A young journalist wanted a story so i gave her one. I was read the story and it's pretty funny and good. Too bad it's not on the information highway!!!



Someone left a comment in the Blog that the story was on the front page so we went for a walk to find the paper.





The story wasn't posted on the Internet but Features Editor Megan MacKay from the Aquinian emailed me the story!!!

Enjoy!!!



It’s Monday morning and Charles LeBlanc walks into the lobby of the Centennial Building with the confidence of an employee.

He’s wearing a black toque, a ball cap and a coat all with “Blogger” embroidered boldly in capital letters.








Tom, the guard at the security desk, looks up to see The Blogger marching toward him.
“Charles,” he says, with mild surprise.







Charles motions to me, standing behind him.

“She wants to know your opinion of bloggers.”

“I think they should all be shot,” Tom says. “They’re lower than snakes.” He smiles playfully.
“You know you’re being recorded,” Charles says.

“I don’t care. I’ll go live.” Tom returns to his work. Charles laughs.

“Tom’s alright,” he says. “I met Tom in 2003. I was protesting in a tent, Tom was a security guard at the Ledge. Nice guy.”








Charles LeBlanc is called many things- blogger, activist, journalist, nuisance. His blog, which he updates several times a day, is part community journalism, part political satire, and part activist manifesto. Today I’m following him to try and figure out how he is able to be everywhere all of the time.






While his writing style is controversial- he often calls RCMP officers and politicians “facists”, and he occasionally refers to the collective population of Fredericton as “snobs”







His blog receives between 500 and 600 hits a day. LeBlanc is convinced he would have more views if his choice of words was a little less strong.






“A lot of people are begging me to stop using the word ‘fascism’. It discredits me,” LeBlanc said. “I said ‘credibility? I lost credibility a long time a go.’”

LeBlanc started sharing his opinion with New Brunswickers by submitting letters to the editor of the Telegraph Journal over a decade ago. After he had written over 500 letters, they stopped being printed.

LeBlanc had to find another way to get his message out to the people, so he began sending mass emails.

Then one day, about five years ago, a friend approached him about starting a blog.

“I realized if you read an email with my opinion, you hit delete and that’s it. It’s over,” LeBlanc said. “But with blogging, it stays there forever.”

Since then, LeBlanc has written over 25 thousand posts on two blogs, and he has a Flickr account with over 160 thousand pictures- all pertaining to issues and events in New Brunswick.

He has an opinion on every topic from how the province views persons with ADHD (a disorder he was diagnosed with a decade ago) to the recent proposed sale of NB Power, to the restoration of the Robbie Burns state in Fredericton.







He is present almost every community event, taking photos of festivals, protests, or even just a particularly heavy snowfall.







“Am I going outside and saying ok I’m gonna cover this story today. No. The story comes to me,” LeBlanc said. “If something’s going on a lot of people [have learned] they can [go to] my blog.”
Charles boots crunch loudly on the sidewalk snow.

“You want to know how I get my ideas? I just walk around,” Charles says. “You gotta get a camera, you gotta get out of the house, you walk around, you look, you see stuff. I’m out here. I’m on the streets.”

Charles stops in at Fox’s Barber Shop on Queen Street.

“I come here then when the customers arrive I leave.”

Bob the barber greets Charles warmly, and sits down with us in chairs at the back of the shop.





The shop is close enough to the legislature that Bob often gets politicians as clients.

“He drove away about three real important customers. Ministers,” Bob laughs. “Charlie was giving them a hard time.”







Bob smiles widely. He has the sort of laugh that sounds like the wind has just been knocked out of him; it’s infectious. He laughs easily and often.







A police scanner chirps in the background. Charles asks Bob what he thinks about bloggers.

“What do I think of bloggers? I think you’re the biggest pain in the ass that God ever made,”

Bob says. There is a pause in conversation while the news that flashes on the silent television distracts the two men.

“You need a haircut again. I told Rick Miles over there next time I cut Charlie’s hair I’ll die it purple.”

Bob and Charles have been friends since Charles had his tent pitched on the lawn of the legislature while he was protesting for persons with ADHD in 2003. Charles would wander in after he’d get a coffee at the café next door in the morning.

“He come in and chit chat for a while, got his hair cut a few times. It don’t take long to get to know him.”

Among a collection he calls “the artifacts”, Bob has Charles’ protest sign that he used to protest Rick Miles during the election.

“He single handedly brought down the government. A regular coup d’etat here in New Brunswick. He pulled it off,” Bob smiles at Charles. “I’m thoroughly convinced you did it all by yourself.”

“Oh I don’t know about that,” Charles says.

“You didn’t get a Christmas card from Rick Miles this year, did ya?” Bob explodes into laughter.

During the recent provincial election, Charles stood outside of Rick Miles and Greg Byrne’s campaign office with a sign that accused the liberal party of fascism, and a bullhorn.








According to Bob, Charles was shouting so loud on his bullhorn they could hear him inside when they were making campaign phone calls.

“He was about two minutes from going home, and they came out and said ‘Go home Charles’, yessir boys he stayed out for another two hours. It was like throwing a whole gas can on the fire.”







A customer walks in, and Charles is already up out of his chair.

“Where ya goin Charlie?”

“Oh you know. Walk around.”

“Don’t believe anything he tells ya,” Bob yells after us as we exit.

“She don’t,” Charles hollers back. She knows I’m a blogger, she don’t believe anything.

LeBlanc is able to devote his time to his blog because he has been on social assistance for several years.

“I get it on my blog all the time, ‘get a job, get a job’. I got a job. I am a professional nuisance,” LeBlanc said. “If I had a girlfriend, or somebody I live with, there is no fucking way that when I get home she would say ‘Hey Dear, How many pictures have you took today? How many politicians did you follow with your camera, with the videos?’ She would say ‘go push a broom somewhere. Go find a job.’”

LeBlanc believes that by continuing the blog he is able to help the people of New Brunswick.
“I’m in a position where I can help people because I have way too much time on my hands,” he said. “Sometimes it gets depressing, sometimes you say ‘what the f... are you doing?’ I’m a strong believer that we’re all here for a reason. And I think that blogging is a way to spread the word.”

The cold outside is painful, so our next stop is Molly’s café, only a block away from the barbershop.

“People get the wrong impression of me, but once you get to know me I’m not that bad. Just like Molly. It’s the same way.”







Molly serves us coffee, leans on the counter to talk to us. Charles asks her the question of the day- what does Molly think about bloggers?

“[They are] a necessary evil,” she says, taking a sip of her coffee. “Bloggers can entertain opinions, and they have control over their own websites.

“Charles is a blogger. He’s central. Everybody knows Charles now. It’s like newspapers. If you had 50 newspapers, no one’s going to read them all. If you have one newspaper, everyone knows to call in to that newspaper. That day is done, so we need something else. Charles is it. I’m hoping there will be a few more to pick up the slack.”

In the past, LeBlanc had sparked debate about the legitimacy of blogs as a news source. The debate gets a little bit more complicated when we consider that occasionally LeBlanc is able to break a story before the traditional media. However, LeBlanc does not want to be a member of the press.

“If I would be legitimate media that the government would consider legitimate press media pass and go [to press conferences], and then you’re part of the media,” LeBlanc said. “If I was legitimate media I would have to ask questions to [politicians] in a news conference in a nice way.”







In 2006 LeBlanc was arrested while covering a rally against the Atlantica conference in Saint John when police mistook him for a protester.








Since then he has had “Blogger” embroidered on a few jackets and hats to distinguish himself.

“[I wear] the blogger jacket and the blogger hat. I know it’s weird, but it’s for my protection,” LeBlanc said. “When I’m somewhere where there’s action [the police] will say ‘there’s the asshole. Right there.’ They know who I am.”






Our last stop is Harvey Studios, where Charles has to get some photos developed. Maurice Richard greets us cordially. Charles asks him his opinion of bloggers.








“Bloggers absolutely fill a need,” Maurice says. He produces two photos of a vehicle with a large crack on the windshield. He tells us his head caused the crack.

“On September 9th 2009 I was crossing [Queen Street] on a green light, this guy went through a red light, almost hit a van, changed direction, struck me, sent me flying about 25 feet through the air. I landed on the sidewalk.”

Maurice had suffered trauma to his head, sternum, back and he broke a rib. Charles arrived on the scene shortly after Maurice had been taken to hospital.

“He just took all these pictures put them on his website. My kids went online, just typed in some information, and his blog came up.”

Charles’ pictures were the only photo documentation of the incident.Maurice and his lawyer were able to use the photos to win his court case.







Professional Nuisance, Amateur Journalist, Community Blogger.





Call Charles LeBlanc what you will. He is not going anywhere.