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In 2006, his first year on the job, Harper responded to questions on 64 per cent of House of Commons sitting days.

But in 2013, when he faced hundreds of queries about his role in the Senate expense scandal, he made it to only 46 per cent of question periods.

The downward trend continued in 2014, when he attended only 36 per cent.

In April and May of this year, he has made it to only six of 22 sessions.

His attendance this year has been markedly worse than that of the last two Liberal prime ministers in their final years in office.

It is considered unparliamentary to refer to another MP’s absence in the House of Commons, but in a scrum with journalists on Wednesday, New Democratic Party leader Tom Mulcair referred to Harper’s truancy.

“It was the first time we had had a chance to see Prime Minister Harper in quite a while,” he said Wednesday, after a session Harper attended. “We don’t see him very often in the House of Commons.”

“When the prime minister is not in Question Period, he is promoting Canadian values and interests on the world stage,” spokesman Stephen Lecce said in a email. “The prime minister is also meeting with Canadians and Canadian businesses on our government’s low-tax plan and benefits for families.”

Attendance in the House of Commons has become a campaign issue before. In the televised leaders’ debate in the 2011 election, then-NDP leader Jack Layton turned on then-Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff’s poor voting record in the House.