CBCnews

Watching the markets tumble

Gilles Duceppe's face twists into an angst-filled grimace on four small colour monitors simultaneously, in the control room of a CBC affiliate in Sherbrooke, Que. Everyone's waiting for a satellite connection to a studio in Montreal where the host of a French-language program on the election will soon appear, and start grilling the Bloc leader..

Political Bytes

Tim Duboyce

But it isn't the anxiety of being in the media hot seat that's got Duceppe's brow furrowed.

Waiting for the taping to begin, his head is turned away from the camera. He's watching — it turns out — a screen displaying a business update.

"I see Wall Street, the Dow Jones, has lost 500 points. What's Toronto down to?" Duceppe asks a disembodied voice at the other end of an audio link.

"It's so far down more than 800 points," the voice responds, in a dire tone.

"Oh la la," Duceppe says, shaking his head.

Tim Duboyce