The party did not allow a single local reporter to ask a question.

The event was in the federal riding of Burnaby North-Seymour, where the issue of Kinder Morgan's proposed oil sands pipeline looms large.

Last week, Conservatives invited journalists to a secretive campaign event with Canada's prime minister in North Vancouver.

Less than a year ago, more than 100 people were arrested on Burnaby Mountain in this riding for crossing into a court-protected zone of Kinder Morgan pipeline drillers.

Many in the area still worry about oil spills, tankers, climate change and the muscling-in of a multinational energy giant against local wishes.

Harper has been silent on those pipeline clashes. He's also been silent about Burnaby Mayor Derek Corrigan's demand that the National Energy Board cancel and restart the entire pipeline hearing process over concerns that Ottawa appointed a Kinder Morgan consultant to the pipeline review agency.

But oil projects—and other topics reporters wanted to raise— didn't stand a chance.

The rule at Harper events is five questions only.

Four questions go to national outlets who pay the Conservative party as much as $78,000 to be on Harper's campaign plane and bus, according to Vice.

The fifth question usually goes to a vetted local outlet. But this time, the one 'local' question went to a Global National reporter, so in effect Harper took no local questions.

"The first marketing prime minister"

Toronto Star columnist Susan Delacourt is not surprised. The author of Shopping for Votes has covered Harper from Ottawa for years, and says in non-election times the prime minister "goes months without taking a question." And now with the election on: "Their dealings with the media are entirely about public relations and marketing —that’s it."

“Mostly I think they just laugh at journalists… they think their primary tool of communication with the public are with advertising, or advertising-like media."

“Harper is the first marketing prime minister —this is what he does," said Delacourt, "It is about complete utility to him and what makes him look good."

So, instead of real engagement with the public through the press, what followed was a "highly organized, ideological rock concert," as one reporter put it, with as little press accountability as possible.

And while the leaders of the NDP, Liberals and Greens generally take questions from all comers at their events, including from audiences, this is not so at the well-financed Conservative campaign stops, which can number two to four per day across Canada.

The Tuesday event ended with the National Observer and other media taking the prime minister's campaign director Kory Teneycke to task for limiting the press' ability to hold elected officials to account at the height of a federal election.

Here’s an insider's look at how Harper's campaign contrives to control the press.