Canadians, people around the world watch as Trump headed to White House

At a Montreal event organized by Democrats Abroad, the mood turned to disbelief as results rolled in.

Abigail Drach, an 18-year-old New Yorker, wondered if gender played a role.

“People feel uncomfortable with the type of woman Hillary is — someone who’s had so much success and had to make so many sacrifices,” Drach said.

One Toronto hotel, which dubbed the election campaign “braggattrocious,” was already packed as the first polling stations south of the border closed and a large television set screened the incoming numbers.

Nearby, another crammed hotel pub selling $10-themed cocktails — Locker Room Talk and My Own Private Emails — was scrambling to accommodate everyone looking to watch.

Anne Leathers, a New Yorker in Toronto for work, said it blew her mind how many people were talking about the election in Canada.

“It’s a bit like a reality TV show for everyone outside of America,” Leathers said. “I work for a British company and it’s very much like that for them.”

In Halifax, at a north-end pub where live results were projected on big screens inside and outside, Laura Neals said she wanted to get together with friends to take in an evening she called “historic.”

Neals said she had been especially excited at the possibility Clinton could become the first female president in the U.S., which would become the 60th country — including Canada — to have had a woman in charge.

“It’s a moment that is important for America but I think it’s important for every woman in the world,” Neals, 29, said as she sipped on a beer before the final results were known.

Back at the packed bash thrown by Democrats Abroad in Calgary, Jim Davis, who moved from the U.S. to Canada for family reasons, dismissed the idea that many Americans would now flee to Canada.

“Every election year there’s always this talk about folks wanting to escape if this or that person wins, but I think in the end Americans, no matter who wins, are going to stay and fight the good fight.”

The mood was also glum at a similar event hosted Democrats Abroad in Toronto.

“Maybe at other places they’re treating it as a hockey game,” said Jacqueline Swartz. “Here we take it more seriously. It affects us more deeply and more personally.”

Around the globe, many others packed various events to watch the show unfold.

Heather Bennett, 40, was among dozens of Americans and Australians at an Irish pub in Canberra, Australia, where she said the distance gave her a different view of U.S.

“In the U.S., you feel like you’re in your own little bubble,” Bennett said.

In the African country of Senegal, more than 100 people posed next to life-size cutouts of the two main candidates and mingled, holding glasses of ginger, bissap and baobab juice in the gardens of the U.S. ambassador’s residence in Dakar.

“Never did we think a black man would become the head of the United States, and now, we have the same hopes for a woman,” said journalist Matel Bocoum, 37.

— With files from Aly Thomson in Halifax, Nicole Thompson in Toronto, Bill Graveland in Calgary, Morgan Lowrie in Montreal and The Associated Press

Colin Perkel, The Canadian Press

by Canadian Press

Canadians, people around the world watch as Trump headed to White House

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