What a night.

Well, there was Election Night in Canada.

The Liberals won. Well, better them than Harper's Bizarre. (terribly sorry for the pun)

I was working until 11:30PM, and I was following 4 things:

• Obviously, the nationwide results (Liberal, minority, good)


• Also obviously, the Quebec results (Bloc, 54 seats, very good)


• Less obviously, the Outremont results (I wanted Lapierre to lose, he didn't, the bastard)


• Also not very obvious, the Papineau results

Let me tell you why. The candidate for the Liberals was Pierre Pettigrew. The Bloc had Martine Carrière. Who is Martine Carrière? She was in my politics class, at the Uni. She's been with the Bloc for 2 years, and had the guts to go against a big name in the Liberal machine, and try to be the youngest female MP ever elected. She was 'dreaming' of forcing Pettigrew into a recount, and 'hoping' that she'd lose by about 5000 votes.

Last election, the Libs won by 12000 votes or so. This time, I was watching closely. Early in the evening, Pettigrew was winning by 300 votes. Then, by 40. Then he started losing. By 10 votes. Then by 200. Then by 800. Then by 1200. (I thouroughly apologize to the lady who had problems installing her USB drivers for her modem at this time - I really wasn't paying attention.) Then I left work.

Fuck this, I'm going to Martine's office. It's at Jarry metro. Luckily, I had a friend with me.

We get there, she's losing by 150 votes. Then by 1400. Then, by 200 again.

Then the votes stop coming out.

No one knows which polls are still to come. It's 50-50.

Drama ensues: it seems one of the poll-persons was pregnant, and was rushed to the hospital to, of all things, have a baby, on election night. Couldn't it wait? Then, another person, in the same office, got a fucking heart attack. Right before opening the damned box.

At this point, she's losing by 334 votes.

Turns out there are two possibilities. Either all boxes have actually been opened, and the result stands, even though Elections Canada's web site says 180/182 boxes open (that's according to the directeur du scrutin, from what I heard). Or, there are 2 boxes still uncounted, and they won't be until tomorrow morning.

Whichever it is, I spent a great evening. Tension, drama (and yes, Jon, even one beer)...

I'm really pround of Martine, and I'm proud of all 16270 people who voted for her. She's a great girl, and she really worked her ass off during the last month. And to think only a few months ago I was helping her with our Canada-Québec Politics class...

Now, to bed. I'm working tomorrow.