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Under a hazy sky, Helen Beath clutched a placard on the picket line outside Montreal General Hospital. Even though she retired in May after 43 years of nursing, Beath returned to the hospital last week to support her former colleagues.

On the crisp wintry morning after the televised leaders debate that was supposed to save his sinking election campaign, Quebec Liberal Leader Jean Charest took his remaining hopes home to the comfort of Quebec’s Eastern Townships.

The First Ministers had barely tucked into their beef consommé when Alberta Premier Ralph Klein began to denounce the federal government’s betrayal.

On a balmy late-December afternoon, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien was in conversation with Maclean’s at his official residence when the telephone rang for the second time. Gesturing to an aide to silence the call, Chrétien said: "Push 'Do Not Disturb.' " The aide hit the button, exclaiming: "Ah, DND.

Having a cabinet minister resign in a flurry of scandal is something no prime minister relishes.

A day after his Newfoundland Liberals returned to power, Brian Tobin was still smiling.

After nearly a quarter of a century, the people of tiny, impoverished East Timor finally had the chance to say what future they wanted - independence, or staying a part of Indonesia. As a phenomenal 98.

Long before New Brunswick Liberal cabinet minister Camille Thériault formally announced his bid for his party's - and the province's - top job on Jan. 26, his leadership ambitions were a badly kept secret.

The backroom boy is in. So is the dark horse. As expected, Hugh Segal, the consummate Tory fixer, announced his run for the federal party leadership last week, followed in short order by Brian Pallister, the former Manitoba cabinet minister.

They are a strange pair in many ways, these two Quebecers of different generations who share the conviction that their province belongs in Canada. Politics has never been a science for Jean Chrétien. He has forged his remarkable political career by following the call of his heart and his gut.

Angel's Roost is a small, elite residence for graduate students at tiny tradition-bound University of King's College in Halifax.

Most government leaders like to cloak themselves in the trappings of high office when they call an election.

According to his friends and longtime political associates, there are two John Savages. The first is the private man, whom they describe as warm and compassionate, a doting grandfather, an affable golf companion.

Among political strategists, it is sometimes known as "the barbecue factor": the manner in which a once-hot candidate ends up cooked on election day. The principal example, one that many of Prime Minister Jean Chrétien's strategists recall with a shudder, is former Ontario Liberal leader Lyn McLeod.

On the last day of what may have been Jean Chrétien's final election campaign, the Prime Minister went back to the place where his life and his political career both began.

Just past the halfway point in the four-week Ontario election campaign, nastiness was lurking around every corner. Liberal Leader Dalton McGuinty accused Premier Mike HARRIS of lying baldly and of pitting Ontarians against each other in a callous bid for votes.

It was the moment when a bad week for the Liberal government's Quebec strategy got worse.

Tobin's chipper words aside, there remain daunting hurdles to overcome if the premier's power play is to become a reality by 2007, the target completion date.

Public Relations 400: Case Study (honors students only). The client is a former Canadian prime minister who left office with the lowest poll ratings in history.

In political circles, the glass-walled building in downtown Fredericton where Frank McKenna toiled for 10 years as New Brunswick premier was sometimes known as "Frank’s 7-11.