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Remembrance Day preparations get under way at sunrise at the National War Memorial in Ottawa on Wednesday, November 11, 2009.

Wednesday, November 11, 2009 7:51 AM

Preparing to remember

Steven Chase

Sunrise at the National War Memorial. Preparations got underway at dawn this morning for the Remembrance Day ceremony in the nation's capital. Organizers expect bigger than usual crowds for the event in part because guests this year include Prince Charles and Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall. A new Ipsos-Reid poll says a majority of Canadians believe observing two minutes of silence on Remembrance Day should be mandatory rather than voluntary, and The Globe and Mail's Michael Valpy investigates why Nov. 11 ceremonies are growing like poppies.

All-Star Canadian. NDP Leader Jack Layton Layton is attending Remembrance Day ceremonies at the war memorial with Joan Negus, 85, (née Joan Layton). She's his father's older sister. Joan danced with the "Canadian Legion All Stars" for our troops in the Second World War in England, Scotland, Holland, Belgium and Germany in 1945. She will be in a wheelchair and lay a wreath with him.

(Photo by Steven Chase/The Globe and Mail)

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The morning buzz: What's making news on Parliament Hill today

1) With a little help from his friends. L. Ian MacDonald, editor of Policy Options magazine and former speechwriter to Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, says Stephen Harper's surprise Conservative victory in Rivière-du-Loup is partly due to Quebec Liberal Premier Jean Charest's "Big Red Machine."

2) Support for soldiers at 65-year high? Stephen Harper says Canadians' appreciation for the military "may be higher today than at any time since the Second World War." Read the full text of his remarks here.

3) Message received. Senior Liberal MP Marc Garneau says Liberals got the message loud and clear on Monday. The party's lacklustre showing in by-elections, he says, demonstrate Canadians are still angry at the party's September decision to try to defeat the Tories and force an election during a recession. The Liberals' Quebec lieutenant said the results also indicate Canadians want to hear more new ideas from the party, rather than merely opposition to Harper government policies.

4) Double-double toil and trouble. Parliament Hill gives Tim Hortons the boot. As Sunmedia's Peter Zimonjic reports, the iconic coffee retailer is being forced from its location across from Parliament Hill.

5) Nobody likes quitters. Bloc Leader Gilles Duceppe sticks to his line that the party's spanking in Rivière-du-Loup is really just a backlash against incumbent Paul Crete leaving the job early. "I think all politicians should think over the idea that, once they win a mandate, they should complete it," Mr. Duceppe told reporters November 10 on his way into a book launch at an Old Montreal restaurant. "We have had more unfortunate results than fortunate ones over the years in by-elections called because our MPs left."

6) Too Little, Too Late. The Harper Conservatives admit they got out-organized in New Westminster Coquitlam, where the NDP not only held onto the riding but thumped the Tories by racking up a 14-point lead in vote share. Just how bad a job did the Tories do? A mailout to New Westminster-Coquitlam voters from Conservative candidate Diana Dilworth arrived at one riding address on November 10, the day after the by-election. It was post-marked on election day, November 9, and the postmark, ironically, was "Lest we forget."

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Ottawa Notebook Contributors

Jane Taber, senior political writer

Jane Taber

Jane Taber has been on Parliament Hill since the Mulroney days, first writing for the Ottawa Citizen in 1986. Since then, she's reported for a small television network, WTN, and for the National Post before joining The Globe’s parliamentary bureau in 2002. She is the senior political writer and also co-host of Question Period, which airs Sundays on CTV.

 
John Ibbitson

John Ibbitson

John Ibbitson started at The Globe in 1999 and has been Queen's Park columnist and Ottawa political affairs correspondent. Most recently, he was a correspondent and columnist in Washington, where he wrote Open and Shut: Why America has Barack Obama and Canada has Stephen Harper. He returned to Ottawa as bureau chief in 2009. Before joining The Globe, he worked as a reporter, columnist and Queen’s Park correspondent for Southam papers.

 

Steven Chase

Steven Chase has covered federal politics in Ottawa for The Globe since mid-2001. He's previously worked in the paper's Vancouver and Calgary bureaus. Prior to that, he reported on Alberta politics for the Calgary Herald and the Calgary Sun, and on national issues for Alberta Report. He's had ink-stained hands for far longer though, having worked as a paperboy for the (now defunct) Montreal Star, the Winnipeg Free Press, the Vancouver Sun and the North Shore News.

 
Deputy Ottawa bureau chief Campbell Clark

Campbell Clark

Campbell Clark has been a political writer in The Globe and Mail’s Ottawa bureau since 2000. Before that he worked for The Montreal Gazette and the National Post. He writes about Canadian politics and foreign policy. He stopped being fascinated by ShamWow commercials after that guy’s nasty incident in Florida, but still wonders if one can really pull a truck with that Mighty Putty stuff.

 

Bill Curry

A member of the Parliamentary Press Gallery since 1999, Bill Curry worked for The Hill Times and the National Post prior to joining The Globe in Feb. 2005. Originally from North Bay, Ont., Bill reports on a wide range of topics on Parliament Hill. He is very protective of the office copy of Marleau & Montpetit.

 

Gloria Galloway

Gloria Galloway has been a journalist for almost 30 years. She worked at the Windsor Star, the Hamilton Spectator, the National Post, the Canadian Press and a number of small newspapers before being hired by The Globe and Mail as deputy national editor in 2001. Gloria returned to reporting two years later and joined the Ottawa bureau in 2004. She has covered every federal election since 1997 and has done several tours in Afghanistan.

 

Daniel Leblanc

Daniel Leblanc studied political science at the University of Ottawa and journalism at Carleton University. He became a full-time reporter in 1998, first at the Ottawa Citizen and then in the Ottawa bureau of The Globe and Mail. While he likes the occasional brown envelope, he is also open to anonymous emails.

 

Stephen Wicary

Stephen Wicary has been with The Globe since 2001, working on the news desk as a copy editor, page designer, production editor and front page editor. During the U.S invasion of Iraq, he pulled a three-month stint as overnight editor of the website. He moved to the parliamentary bureau at the end of 2008 to bolster online political coverage.