Courtesy of Colleague Potter, we now have a pretty good idea of how the day is going to unfold, if some uncertainty as to whether or not “farewell” can legitimately be used as a verb.
ITQ’s O-Day agenda, meanwhile, is still somewhat in flux. As livebloggers are not (yet) considered to be pool media, most of the official events will be off-limits, but that won’t stop the signal — at least, unless the Secret Service decides to get scrambly with the berry frequency. (They wouldn’t do that, would they? I mean, the president might get ticked if he couldn’t check his email.)
After watching the O-rrival from the Hot Room, I’ll head down to the front lawn to wait for the motorcade — which means I won’t get to watch the PM greet the president, but it’s not like I was going to be able to see anything from behind the security cordon. (See above re: pool media; stubborn refusal to recognize liveblogging as such.)
Once the president has been whisked away for his “tete a tete” and subsequent working lunch, the liveblogging will move indoors as I wander the hallways of Centre Block until the president finally reappears, just in time for the joint press conference — which I’ll try to watch from the shared filing room — and the aforementioned “farewelling” (not a word) of the president by the Prime Minister.
Finally, ITQ will be on the scene for Michael Ignatieff’s post-Obama press conference, which will take place at around 5pm.
Anyway, depending on how long it takes me to make it through security — which, by the way, even those of us with full accreditation and the magic O-pass will have to do every single time we set foot outside Centre Block — there will be an all-day liveblog thread going up on ITQ a little later this morning, so check back around 9am.
UPDATE: The promised thread is now live, and open for all your idle commentary and helpful suggestions about footwear, so head on over for all the excitement!