Life as a Parliamentary Guide

As a Parliamentary Guide I have many responsibilities and this blog post will allow me to explain what I do on Parliament Hill. 

1. Guide: For most of our shifts we are guides which means we are offering tours of Centre Block. We have recently extended the tour route so we now show visitors the House of Commons Foyer, House of Commons Chamber, Reading Room, Library of Parliament, Senate Foyer, Senate Chamber, and the Salon de la Francophonie. Each tour we give is different as we never know who will be on our tour so we need to be adaptable, creative, and engaging. Guiding is my favourite shift as I get to share my knowledge of Parliament, interact with visitors from all around the world, and I always learn something new because my visitors ask great questions. Guiding can also be the most challenging shift because we give tours to groups of 50 people and sometimes people are simply not interested in the legislative process; my goal is to try and make Canadian government and legislation exciting. Another challenge we have is that we offer tours in both English and French and sometimes people who do not speak French take tickets for the French tours; all of a sudden members of the group do not know what I am saying and maintaining control of the group becomes harder. We offer four English tours and two French tours every hour so I am always keeping track of logistics in my mind while giving my tour. I have to know where my colleagues are while I am speaking to ensure that we do not create backups in the hallways. Guiding has pushed me outside of my comfort zone because I never thought I would be very comfortable speaking in front of 50 people for over an hour in either English or French. 

2. Peace Tower & Memorial Chamber: We work in the Peace Tower and Memorial Chamber to offer informal interpretation. The Memorial Chamber is a space dedicated to Canadian soldiers who have passed away in different conflicts around the world while representing Canada. We do not give tours of this space but we are there to maintain decorum and to answer any questions our visitors may have. 

3. Greeting: This shift takes place right outside the Peace Tower, directly outside the entrance to Parliament's Centre Block. It is our responsibility to ensure we know what every visitor entering the building is there for. Essentially, no visitor can enter Parliament without speaking to us first. I love this shift because I get to spend time meeting people from all over the world, who I might not necessarily meet on tour, and I get to spend time outside.

4. 90 Wellington: This is where we distribute tickets for the guided tours. Tickets are given out on the same day, first come-first serve. Generally this is also a fun shift because we are meeting many visitors, however, on very busy days (Victoria Day weekend, Canada Day week) this shift becomes hard as we run out of tickets early. For the rest of the day we are telling visitors we do not have any tickets left and explaining how they can try and get tickets for the next day. This is probably where you will deal with the most disappointment because many people are shocked that we run out of tickets and simply do not understand why they cannot all enter the building. It is our job to explain that we have 6 public tours every hour, plus reserved groups, which means we are hosting around 3,000 visitors a day and because of security we simply cannot accommodate more. Generally visitors are understanding, however, there are always people who are persistent and ask us to make special exceptions, which we cannot. This shift teaches you how to be empathetic, but also how to communicate effectively and assertively.