Being There

Ottawa-Centre Lib­eral Can­di­date Penny Collonette

It was early, very early. It was also far too late, and the game was already lost.

I arrived at the recep­tion hall at 8:30pm, when the polls were still open for another hour. Bet­ter too early than too late, I said to myself. I was excited to be finally get­ting some action again after a slow week or two.

It was a small room, with space for about a hun­dred and an over­sized golden chan­de­lier in the mid­dle. A hand­ful of young Lib­eral vol­un­teers were duti­fully hang­ing posters and flip­ping between tele­vi­sion sta­tions on the big screen. I knew Paul Dewar, the NDP can­di­date, was hold­ing his recep­tion at Sala San Marco on Pre­ston Street, in a hall eas­ily four times the capacity.

A Lib­eral sup­porter watches the results roll in

With time to kill I headed back to the lobby. There was noth­ing to do. I milled about, and just as I was about to head out­side, a voice from behind said “A human rights abuse, that’s what it is!” Peo­ple have always just talked to me. I’ve heard a lot of life sto­ries, some true, oth­ers not. It doesn’t mat­ter either way, I like to hear them. Strangers tell me who they are, and who they want to be. Some of the time I don’t know what to say.  Most of the time there is noth­ing to say, I just lis­ten. After an hour of lis­ten­ing, I could start to hear the recep­tion heat­ing up down the hall. Peo­ple were hoot­ing and hol­ler­ing, and boo­ing the TV. It was time to get back to work.

It was a sad night for Stéphane Dion

I had met Stéphane Dion, work­ing with my friend Aaron McKen­zie Fraser on the pho­tos for Dion’s lead­er­ship run. There was Dion, in Aaron’s lit­tle apart­ment on James Street, in his t-shirt and shorts. He looked like a child. His han­dlers were apolo­getic. “No sense of style,” they said, “we tell him what to wear.” Nobody seemed to think he really had a chance. Dion him­self didn’t seem to be there at all. He wasn’t pay­ing atten­tion. Aaron mixed him a drink. All of a sud­den he was alive with orders, instruc­tions about cer­tain doc­u­ments, some­thing to do with the Kyoto Pro­to­col. He was there all right, he just wasn’t with us. I remem­ber think­ing “He should be Prime Min­is­ter, but he never will.”

As the Party unrav­eled across the coun­try, I couldn’t help feel­ing bad for the party unfold­ing in front of me. The room was full, but it was full of young syco­phants and old party hacks. Some­how, the life of the Lib­eral party had dis­ap­peared. It wasn’t Stéphane’s fault, and it wasn’t Penny’s either, the heart and soul of the move­ment was gone, and they had noth­ing new to offer.

In the end, although I am not a Lib­eral, I voted for Penny and Stéphane. A woman and a nerd is a team I want rep­re­sent­ing me. Too bad every­one else doesn’t agree. It is a tragedy of our sys­tem that qual­i­fied and accom­plished Cana­di­ans like Stéphane Dion and Penny Col­lonette aren’t part of the government.

I still don’t know what human rights abuse was being com­mited that night — I didn’t get to hear the end of the story. By mid­night, when the recep­tion was begin­ing to die down, my new friend had dis­ap­peared. Maybe I’ll hear from her again, but prob­a­bly not. Los­ing bat­tles are almost always fought alone.