CHARLOTTETOWN — The federal Conservatives made a show of opening their summer caucus meeting room to news media Thursday after the three-day strategy session got off to a rough start.

The Prime Minister's Office instructed RCMP officers to evict reporters covering the event in Charlottetown from a public hotel lobby on Wednesday.

The Mounties involved made it clear the expulsion was all about message control, not security.

Only two of the party's 125 MPs were offered up for interviews on the session's opening day.

But on the second day, TV cameras and reporters were invited into the hotel ballroom to witness the opening of the full national caucus meeting.

MPs and Senators belted out the national anthem, and Prime Minister Stephen Harper welcomed former Liberal MP Joe Comuzzi into the Tory fold.

Harper was to give a news conference late in the day, but officials from his office waffled when asked when any other cabinet ministers or MPs would be made available in a media room set up across the street from the hotel.