On The Peripheral of Last Night

No Narrative, Next to No Analysis, All Data

It’s a scary beautiful day in Nepean. Sundresses and shorts weather. I listen to The Halluci Nation’s One More Saturday Night as I drive over to “Liberal Headquarters” to join maybe 200 reporters for Election Night. I reread an email as I walk through the Glebe:

“April 28^th marks the end of the most consequential election of our lifetime. And we’re looking forward to welcoming you to our Canada Strong election night event. Here are the details: March 28 Details: …”

Typo.

At the Media Registration Desk, a Liberal staffer: “You’re not on the list. What outlet are you from?”

Me: “I’m freelance.”

Staffer: “What outlet are you from? Do you have accreditation?”

Me, having decided not to mention Substack tonight: “I’m freelance. No, I don’t have accreditation. I got the email if you—"

Staffer: “No, I believe you.”

He looks at my ID and walks away to make a call, a battery bank wire running from his pocket to his phone. He comes back and his colleague writes me a pass with a green Sharpie:

Joseph Mathieu
Freelance

As I eat half my fried rice on a bench outside, one videographer says to another: “The riser is not good. The Leader is going to have people behind him, so from the riser you’ll see feet behind his head… I wish I hadn’t been here since 2 and I wish I didn’t have to be here until 1. I think they’ll let supporters in around 8:15. We won’t see the Leader until midnight.”

A woman walks by with what looks like a sweet, old Golden Retriever. She asks: “Can he say hi?”

The videographer: “I’d rather not.”

The photographers are a bit tense. They just wanna get the shot and file quickly, but when they are all crowded close together, it sometimes bugs out the WiFi and cell reception. One photog’s massive lens, rented from Vista, is inspected by another:

“500 mil? Tight.”

A black German Shepherd smells our bags, formed in a line on the floor beneath a wall dedicated to a beloved hockey coach. One broadcaster mutters: “What a strange arrangement.”

An old photog colleague from Carleton University looks at my artisanal media pass: “Joe, how do they know you’re not Rebel Media? I guess they just Google you? Have you ever worked around them? Fuck… When I do, I just—" he crouches behind an imaginary camera “—and become invisible.”

On the riser with the bad angle, two stripes of Bloomberg tape are ripped up because another riser has blocked the view: “They got a hair camera in my shot.” I sit next to Canadian Press and we get to typing. Here I realize that my notebook is a Triform Law Enforcement Products Security Notebook, the first several pages include the “Notice Upon Arrest & Right to Counsel” spiel, a “National Use of Force Framework”, directions on given CPR to an infant, and other important tips that I do not need to know. Where did I get this notebook??

A print journalist: “I asked him if he was going to vote. ‘No, I’ve got other things to do,’ he said. This is my grown son! If there is a disc golf game that comes up, or he has to be watching hockey: no. It’s not a good time.”

And then: “I feel good. I feel nervous. A tiny little bit.”

There is a mic check: “Ladies and Gentlemen, please welcome to the stage, [Leader’s Partner]!” Hoots of joy from some staffers and everyone looks to the stage. No one appears.

The last time I was in this space was to watch The Return of the King live in concert with friends and family. Where 250 musicians and choir performed there is now a bright red stage with a blinding Canadian flag on a massive LED screen, a projected broadcast screen for CBC News to play above that, and two massive cloth flags flanking the stage.

Under the left flag is a DJ and behind her is a black curtain that hides the filing room: a typist pen in the corner of the hockey rink where they can pound their laptops in peace. Every screen shuffles incessantly between Slack, Google Docs, and some kind of geographical poll tracker.

A gaggle of Spanish and German journalists swarm the Media Buffet with the appearance of spring rolls, pot stickers, croquettes and spanakopita. The first in line lines up again immediately; she wants to get more and works to empty her plate before she gets back there.

One guy: “The last time I saw you was when [British PM] was here for the G7!”

Another: “I think I would remember if I’d met [British PM]!”

A broadcaster struggles to turn off a water jug’s spigot. The metal overflow bowl is filling, the water is rising and rising. She keeps twisting the tap, it keeps running. “You know what we’re going to do? Let’s just…” She wiggles a paper cup out of another and moves the metal bowl. “Let’s put that under there, okay!” She walks away, the water is still dripping. I turn it off.

Under the right flag the black curtains are parted and staffers mill in and out. This is where the Leader will appear.

What will he see from the stage when he looks out on his supporters? A lot of black walls, curtains, cameras, lights, lights and more lights. The floor shakes like a deck of cards, and there is no ice under there, right? But there is water along the edges of the rink.

MC Gilles: “On vas-tu voir en haut?”

Infoman: “Sinon, on va s’endormir.”

What happens when a screen is on? Heads turn. So much waiting around, chewing gum and jerky, testing out running shoes, chitchatting. What am I doing here? I see a few other handwritten passes, including one for Al Jazeera. But why am I here? I really don’t belong. If anyone asks I say, “I’m working on spec.” Which is a way to say, I’m not sure if I’m going to be paid for this. Which is a lie: I know I won’t be paid for this.

Walk around. Shoot your ass off. Note that I don’t belong. Maybe I could park on this red couch for a bit? Security descends: “You can’t be here—” he references his roll of paper with access instructions “—yeah, no media in this area.”

Finally, away from all the lights and noise and political analysis on the Jumbotron, I’m right behind the stage. A cop patrolling the empty seats nods and smiles:

“How you doing?”

“Good. In for the long haul?”

“It’s going to be a night.”

Later, he asks me what I’m reading. “I never see people reading these days!” I show him the spine of How Propaganda Works: “Just some light reading.”

“Ah,” he smiles. He walks away. He turns back:

“Hey, are you Media or with the Party?”

I flash my badge. Thumbs up.

(This book, it turns out, sucks. It has not a single good sentence but it does have one good idea: “When societies are unjust… we can expect the emergence of flawed ideologies. The flawed ideologies allow for effective propaganda.”)

What the heck AM I doing here? I’m not eating the food—well, one cheese roll and two jumbo cookies, and a tea and a coffee, and the rest of my rice—I’m not interviewing anyone. So, I better reread my own assignment letter:

“We [I wrote] are interested in the peripheral of the Election Night Event, with details, dialogue and graphic descriptions. We’d like to read what happened in that Nepean event space [it’s in The Glebe] on such a historic night. While a speech is delivered and every eye is on one person [which hasn’t started by 12:31AM], what is the interplay between detail and meaning [cribbed that line, ineffectively, from Artful Journalism]. Your assignment is to perceive and report the obvious [cribbed from The Reporters syllabus, Week 2: It’s Obvious]: think of this not as a report but a tone poem, an impression, a series of data to show what it was like that night.

“We [me] want you [me] to report what you [me] see, and not exactly the most "important" things that most election night pieces cover. Think slice-of-life meets ethnographic snapshop.”

A staffer gets on stage stands behind the podium and bends his knees to match the Leader’s height. Another staffer helps him measure the teleprompter while photographers lounge on monitor speakers.

“That one looks fairly decent, could you just move it up a little bit? Maybe a little down? The thing about this podium…”

It is 9:30PM and my left eye has started to twitch. A smoke machine has surreptitiously gassed the floor as the DJ puts on “Hideaway” by Kiesza. The staffers are still frigging with the teleprompters and podium. A photographer looks through the viewfinder of a colleague’s Leica M (Typ 240)—a very expensive camera.

And suddenly: there are supporters on the floor behind us. It’s 9:45PM. They are craning their necks behind the journalists and taking all the pictures I’ve taken, that is to say: bad pictures of the impossibly bright screen. Dress codes vary: cocktail dresses, nice suits, a Leafs jersey, a Team Canada jersey, sharp blazers and converse. They are drinking.

One photog sharply inhales and says: “Here we go.”

As of 9:50PM, the Liberals are 100 seats away from a majority. And I remind myself: it’s a marathon, not a sprint. I’m going to sit down and eat my Lolli Bomb Tomatoes and Extrafresh Grapes. Okay, the cherry tomatoes are bomb—well named—and the grapes are fresh as fuck.

And just like that, the polls have closed in B.C. and the Yukon. 344 polls are reporting and the Liberal supporters are starting to rival journalists in number.

“One… Zero… Eight!” an elderly man reads the numbers on the Jumbotron as though conducting an eye test. “We are getting there!”

At 10:11PM CBC calls it for the Liberals—but who knows what that government will look like? Cheers erupt and journalists pick their way through the crowd, pulling aside the happiest or funniest folks. Euphoria and hugs.

Infoman informs an exuberant cowgirl with a sequinned jean jacket, long white skirt, white boots and a red rancher hat with a white maple leaf that the Liberals were called as winners. She hadn't yet noticed, because she looks so good and so happy that every journalist in the room gravitates to her. Like bored moths to a kooky flame. She's so surprised and pleased by this news—he points to the screen behind her as evidence—she thanks him and kisses him and says "It looks like [Leader] is going to be our next Prime Minister, and that is quite grand!"

Twenty minutes later, she is still being interviewed—every journalist in the room will get to her, I’m sure.

“Sundown” by Gordon Lightfoot plays over a montage of the Leader at all his election events, pressers, photo ops and good lights.

Around quarter to 11, for the first time that night, Global News comes on the Jumbotron. There is a mosh of folks on the floor, and a smattering of supporters in the stands, all staring up. The VJ cuts the Global feed because it keeps cutting out, and we are back to CBC where a journalist is holding up the 91-candidate ballot for the Carleton riding that’s longer than a hand towel.

We are going back and forth between 159 & 164 for Liberals. At 10:56 it goes down to 157. Conservatives are creeping up at 144.

L158/C143.

L157/C144.

L156/C145.

A hush falls on the room.

There are eight risers on the floor: simple scaffolds covered in complicated wires and lights and cameras. There are A/V stations behind them, in the bleachers, beside the stage, behind the black curtains, etc. etc. There are photographers rushing to and fro, one whispering metadata into his camera like it’s a magic lamp. A writer illuminates his old laptop keyboard with a camping lantern from Canadian Tire. Staffers hand out “[Leader] for Canada” & “Canada Strong” placards. Much activity. And yet:

Every face is turned up to the Jumbotron or turned down to their phones. There is giggling and milling about and looking around, but there is something tense again. The count: Liberals 156 to Conservatives 148.

Journaliste de Radio-Canada: “‘Ey Seigneur!” Un des journalists sur le Jumbotrón mentionne Infoman et ce dernier fist bump l’air dans les bleachers en avant de moi. Je me sens perdu dans l’écran aussi grand que ma cour. C’est le temps de bouger.

They turn off the feed for 10 minutes, to get rid of all those scary numbers. After two songs—“We’re Here for a Good Time (Not a Long Time)” by Trooper and “Tom Sawyer” by Rush—they flip the switch back on: Liberals 163 / Conversatives 146.

Just before midnight, the boos start when Conservatives come on the screen.

The NDP Leader gives a concession speech, and the room is quiet, respectful. He steps down at 12:40AM.

“…in the fight for justice and fairness, we have to have a defiant optimism in the face of struggle… Hope over fear, optimism over despair, love over hate…”

12:53AM the Conservative Leader starts his concession speech, before his riding is called. He gets heckled lightly by Liberal supporters. When Conservative supporters start to chant onscreen “Bring it home!”, one Liberal supporter says: “He can’t. Are you guys fucking idiots?”

There are no cheers when he congratulates all candidates who have participated in the democratic process. But many cheer when he congratulates their Leader, the Prime Minister.

Once the Leader stands on this stage, he’ll see crests of red signs bobbing over waves of red faces—from the lights, from the wine, from the beer. At least 150 people are placed on stage before his arrival, finally dulling the painful LED flag. Four staffers direct them on where to stand. Broadcast risers are now as much for old pizza boxes and empties as they are for exhausted journalists.

Jubliant cheers when he appears after his wife.

The crowd: Arms crossed. Big smiles. Signs up. Phones make vertical video recordings. Every professional lens is aimed at him. Photogs maneuver, poise, shoot, scatter like paintball players. I get a lot of hard stares from men with earpieces whose jackets hardly hide their weapons. Perhaps because I am wearing a black N95 mask and yellow earplugs.

Prime Minister: “We are once again at one of those hinge moments of history.” & “‘We’ decide what happens here.” & “…getting the best deal… make the greatest country on earth even better.”

There are three mentions of Indigenous Peoples and one of « le français ».

Behind him are many Ottawans and, I assume, Nepeanites. They look like I feel: tired. Halfway through the speech, the ring of journalists around the crowd of supporters have their necks bent to their phones. One broadcast journalist on his riser is putting pencil to notepad. Hey, that’s cool, I think.

When he’s done, a song by Coeur de Pirate comes on. It’s 1:42AM when a voice says, “We ask you to be patient another 10 minutes for a special musical guest!”

I leave. I enjoy “The OG (feat. Black Bear)” by The Halluci Nation on the way home.