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Escape route

Tim Naumetz reveals the Prime Minister’s way in and out of Question Period each day.

For at least two years, following his battle with the press gallery in 2006, Harper has snubbed the front door of the Commons for Question Period. He established a covert route to get to the Chamber from his third-floor Centre Block office, ducking down through a narrow hallway behind the public gallery atop the west side of the Chamber, down a small staircase, and then scuttling into the government lobby through a back door across from the House Speaker’s Chamber.

Arriving and leaving the Centre Block, his motorcade now pulls up beside a renovated House Speaker’s entrance at the West side of the building. Harper whisks in and out as his sun-glassed Mountie bodyguards give cover.

No Prime Minister has ever avoided the front entrance to the Commons and no one, at least outside of Harper’s inner circle, understands why Harper does.

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