Reporters -- print reporters; ink-stained wretches -- hung out in the lobby of a Charlottetown, PEI hotel where the federal Tories were meeting Wednesday. If that's not bad enough, they actually approached a cabinet minister and asked him questions.
Fortunately, he survived this terrorist attack, but the RCMP recognized the seriousness of the situation and asked the media to leave.
"There's a time and a place for the media," a Mountie told a small knot of print reporters, making it clear the issue was not a matter of security but of communications strategy.
The unnamed officer said he was acting on orders from the PMO.
The reporters were nowhere near the actual caucus meetings, which took place behind a set of closed doors and somewhere down a long hallway in one of the hotel ballrooms. But it was too close for the Conservatives, who set up a media room in a federal building across the street and promised to bring MPs for interviews "where appropriate."
Sandra Buckler, Prime Minister Stephen Harper's director of communications, said the Conservatives - who campaigned on a platform of government accountability to the public - were merely following their own past practice.
"It's quite normal for there to be private areas and then areas where the media are," she said by e-mail.
She suggested reviewing the experiences of reporters at last year's Tory summer caucus in Cornwall, Ont.
"They will tell you there is nothing new here. We provided MPs for commentary, and we are following that same routine this year."
She didn't comment on the appropriateness of using the RCMP to keep reporters away.
MP Rahim Jaffer, the national caucus chairman, was one of two of the party's 125 MPs put forward for media interviews on Wednesday, the opening day of the caucus.
After initially stating the media cordon was to keep reporters away from MPs' families, Jaffer said the decision was made by the RCMP on security grounds.
"It's my understanding the RCMP makes its own security assessments," Jaffer said just prior to an evening speech by the prime minister.
Update
The Tories threw open the doors to the news media Thursday morning and allowed filming of them singing O Canada and welcoming Joe Comuzzi.