May 20, 2005

Crazy Day(s)...
It`s been a busy two days at Parliament.
On Wednesday and Thursday I was working Accueil (welcoming people to Parliament and directing human traffic) and the Peace Tower. On Wednesday I got to see the Attorney General of the US, Alberto Gonzales, as I was working under the Peace Tower when his entourage (including security) answered a few media questions, and then went into Parliament. That was my brush with fame, lol. I also saw Hedy Fry, a Liberal MP from Vancouver, and exchanged a few words with David Kilgour, an independent MP who had considerable power in last nights confidence votes.
Yesterday was busy for totally different reasons. Besides the daily protesters, more protesters started to arrive around 2. There was a big banner outside that read "Happy Retirement Paul!" I bet they were surprised.
The building was closed to tourists from 4 to 7, due to the voting in the evening, and the number of people who wanted to attend question period and the votes in the evening (no, I didn`t have the right to vote last night, it was only for elected Members of Parliament). We had a 2 hour long line for security, one hour before question period. My shift at Accueil started at 10, and there were already people lining up then for the 308 available seats in the gallery.
Later in the evening, there was more-or-less a countdown until the vote. Luckily I was off work at 6 (the doors to the gallery were locked at 5:45, as no one can enter or leave during voting), so I got to go into Centre Block and watch the non-confidence vote on TV inside Parliament.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

do you work with a dude named Ben who used to live in Mission and now goes to McGill for his pol and phil degree?

just curious.

I was in a doctors appt for the vote. At SFU they had tv's set up around the campus watching it, apparently.

us pol geeks, eh? :)

-Sheila Ann

Stephen said...

Yah, I sure do work with Ben. My dad taught him science and chem at HPSS. Do you know him? The next day we`re working together is Wednesday.
I also work with another girl from Abby, whose mother is my French prof. Small world, eh?
I didn`t think that I`d be such a pol nerd, lol. It`s easy to get infected by pol in Ottawa though.

Stephen said...

I said hi to Ben for you, and he says hi back. But he doesn`t really remember you. Where did you meet him?

Anonymous said...

I was hoping Belinda Stronach would win the tory leadership. She could have moved the party to more libertarian lines. Oh well we'll see how far she can pull the liberals that direction. She has way too much ambition and talent to play second fiddle to Harper or Martin. After keeping the liberals in power my bold prediction is that she will get the finance portfolio after the next election and succeed Martin when he retires after 6 years as PM.

:)

Stephen said...

That doesn`t sound too unplausible. She`ll hopefully bring some new blood to the Liberals. They could use some. Her and Harper were having some "issues" before she crossed the floor, so it sort of makes sense. You`ve got to feel a little sorry for Peter McKay though. That`s a harsh way to break up!

Anonymous said...

I loved Peter McKay's line "I'm going home to walk my dog. Dogs are loyal."

At least he has a sense of humor.

Stephen said...

Yah, I think you have to have a sense of humour in politics.