The event’s 6,000 tickets sold out in less than a half-hour last month. Their online resale value has since tripled<\/a>, with some going for close to $1,600.\u00a0<\/p>\n Among those who managed to snap up a ticket is\u00a0Sabrina\u00a0Jafralie, a high school ethics and religious culture\u00a0teacher who made the trip to Washington for\u00a0Obama’s inauguration\u00a0in 2008.\u00a0<\/p>\n “I’m hoping he will have a lot of good words for the city of Montreal, for our birthday, something hopeful,”\u00a0Jafralie said. “If anything,\u00a0Barack Obama is really good\u00a0at encouraging\u00a0through his words and being an encouraging person.”<\/p>\n CBC Montreal will have full coverage of Barack Obama’s speech later today.\u00a0The event will be live streamed on our website<\/a> and on our Facebook page<\/a> beginning at 5:30 p.m. ET.<\/em><\/p>\n We will also live blog the speech.<\/em><\/p>\n After leaving office in January, Obama took an extended vacation.<\/p>\n Photos of him smiling broadly\u00a0while kite-surfing and yachting set the internet alight as Americans\u00a0\u2014 and the rest of the world\u00a0\u2014 adjusted to a Donald Trump presidency.<\/p>\n Obama took an extended vacation after leaving office in January. But in recent weeks, the former U.S. leader has been on a speaking tour. (Jack Brockway\/Virgin)<\/p>\n But more recently\u00a0Obama\u00a0has embarked on an international\u00a0speaking tour\u00a0\u2014 and he hasn’t shied away from criticizing his successor.<\/p>\n While ex-presidents generally tread cautiously when it comes to commenting on\u00a0White House politics, Obama\u00a0has signalled he won’t stay silent as Trump moves to undo some of his signature achievements.<\/p>\n He called out Trump and his fellow Republicans last month for attempting to repeal the Affordable Care Act, the\u00a0health-care law more commonly known as Obamacare.<\/p>\n And last week, Obama issued a brief but scathing statement in response to Trump’s decision to withdraw<\/a> the U.S. from the\u00a0landmark Paris climate agreement. In his statement, Obama decried the “the absence of American leadership” and accused the Trump administration of opting to “reject the future.”<\/p>\n
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\nGetting political again<\/h2>\n
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