… everything starts to look like a hole. Which is now no longer called a hole, but an infrastructure investment opportunity, so please update your talking points accordingly. (For yesterday’s liveblog, click here.)

7:42:06 AM
Good morning, federal-provincial jurisdictional sports fans ! We’re here outside Old City Hall, where, in an unwelcome development, the pre-meeting ins are taking place on the front steps – the outside front steps, in the bitter, freezing cold. I’m not sure how much realtime liveblogging I’m going to be able to do before actual, no-kidding frostbite kicks in.

I arrived at nearly exactly the same time as BC Premier Gordon Campbell, who turned up in a car, unlike ITQ, and as such was happy to stand outside for a few minutes to talk about shovels, and readiness as his aides – unaccustomed to the brutality of the central Canadian winter, shivered beside him.

Hey, there’s the PM! Who doesn’t have anything to say to us, other than good morning, and that he plans to focus on the economy. Never have I been so relieved to hear him say so little.

7:48:53 AM
Fashion note; the PM is wearing the same coat and scarf has he did the day he visited Rideau Hall.

7:55:27 AM
I’m sorry, y’all, I just couldn’t stick it out — minus thirty is just too darned cold to liveblog in the open air. I’ve retreated to the makeshift media gallery, where Danny Wiliams – of whom we saw neither hide nor hair yesterday – is explaining to the assembled press that his focus is on employment insurance – “we really should pump up EI!” – and not tax cuts, although he’s not categorically opposed to the latter.

8:00:13 AM Continue…