Jocelyne Blouin, 68, on May 27, of cancer. Blouin started her career as a meteorologist with the Meteorological Service of Canada (MSC) in 1974 in Edmonton, also contributing to local Radio-Canada broadcasts. She was transferred to Montreal with MSC in 1976 and was offered a part-time position as a weather presenter with Radio-Canada television two years later. She committed herself full-time to television in 1980. After 33 years with the public broadcaster, Blouin retired from Le Telejournal in June 2011. It’s estimated she delivered over 15,000 weather forecasts over the course of her career. In 2016, Blouin and fellow meteorologist Jean-Charles Beaubois launched the Blisly app which predicts how the weather might affect your health, including asthma, allergies, and migraines.
Sarika Sehgal, 42. Sehgal, who had a career that took her from CICI-TV Sudbury to the network anchor desks at CBC Newsworld and CTV News Channel, had left journalism behind in the last 10 years to become the founder and director of the Khel Centre for Creativity & Inner Peace, a creative and spiritual retreat near Erin, ON. After graduating from Humber College, Sehgal had a meteoric rise starting as producer on a national morning show in Toronto before stints at CTV News Sudbury and A-Channel in Edmonton. Within a year, she joined CTV Calgary (CFCN) to co-produce and anchor the station’s noon-hour newscasts. She then landed in Hamilton to executive producer and co-anchor for CH News. In 2003, Sehgal returned to Toronto to co-anchorToronto Tonight on Toronto 1 (CKXT-TV). Following the show’s cancellation in 2005, she joined CBC Newsworld as host of one-hour current affairs and news program CBC News: Today, also taking turns hosting CBC News: Tonight and CBC News: Around the World. She left the public broadcaster in Aug. 2007 to travel the world on a soul-searching journey that would take her to 15 countries. She joined CTV News Channel in late 2011. In a manifesto Sehgal wrote for the Khel website, she explained her decision to walk away from television saying “Like so many North Americans, my entire identity and ego were tied to my work. And that happened for nearly 20 years.” Read more here. A memorial will take place June 7 at 2 p.m. at the Bellfountain Village Church in Caledon, ON.
Gord Kidder, 74, on May 22. A graduate of Mohawk College, Kidder had a long broadcast sales career that included 17 years with CHUM Radio, and seven years with CFRB-AM Toronto. He became a partner in Muskoka Information Radio in 2011, serving the South Muskoka Region. A resident of Port Sydney, ON Kidder was named for an uncle who was killed while a PoW at Stalag Luft III during WWII. He was in the Czech Republic to take part in 75th anniversary ceremonies around The Great Escape, in honour of his uncle, when he suffered a cerebral hemorrhage and fell into a coma. He never regained consciousness. Nearly $100,000 was raised to airlift Kidder back to Canada that included matched donation pledges from Gary Slaight, president and CEO of Slaight Communications, and former CHUM Group chairman Jim Waters. Read more here.
Garfield Ogilvie, 61, on Jan. 31, in Las Vegas from pancreatic cancer. Ogilvie started his broadcast sales career at OZ FM in St. John’s, NL, in 1980. He moved on to CJSB Ottawa in 1982 and then Urban Outdoor Trans Ad in Toronto where he was director of Eastern Canadian sales. He forayed back into radio in 1995, becoming the general sales manager of the CHUM Radio Group in Kitchener (CKWW and CFCA) and later spent several years vice-president of business development with the Radio Marketing Bureau. In 2000, Ogilvie joined Clear Channel Outdoor as vice-president of national sales, based in Toronto. That was the start of 10 years with Clear Channel that would see him move to Chicago, Minneapolis, Las Vegas, and Dallas-Forth Worth with the company. For the last eight years, he’d been director of sales and marketing for PGA Tour facility TPC Summerlin in Las Vegas. A celebration of life will take place in Toronto on June 22. Those interested in service details are asked to reach out directly to Garfield’s son Mitchell, via email at mitchogilvie@gmail.com.
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