There was tight security around Stephen Harper and the Conservative camp, Wednesday night as they held a campaign rally in downtown Vancouver.

Supporters of the Vancouver Safe Injection Site (INSITE) tried and failed to crash the event. But they still managed to get their message out.

The RCMP had the Westin Bayshore hotel surrounded. But once the hundreds of Conservative supporters were inside, the protests began.

And even with all that security, supporters of Vancouver's Safe Injection Site took over the area outside the hotel.

They came in loud and clear, telling the Harper and the Conservatives that INSITE must stay open, something that the Harper government has never committed to.

Tourists who paid good money to stay at one of Vancouver's most luxurious hotels were confused.

And residents in the upscale neighborhood in the vicinity of the hotel were not impressed; many of them pointing out that Harper couldn't hear the protest from inside.

Michael Morgan was among the residents, who made his feelings known. "Who can hear this are probably the thousands or 1,500 people in the neighborhood who are trying to get their kids to bed,'' he said. "So what's the protest? Against children sleeping?"

"I can go to your house and blow a blow horn in your bedroom," he said.

And when the protest tried to move inside, the four star hotel was momentarily locked down.

Police didn't make any arrests because the protest was on private property.

"We've rented a small conference room next to the Prime Minister's so that means we're legally allowed to be here,'' said Mark Townsend, director of the Portland Hotel Society.

Death threats against Harper have forced him to travel under tight security.

So how did a group of downtown eastside activists infiltrate the system, even managing to evade RCMP snipers to unfurl a protest banner from the hotel?

Vancouver police can only say that it would have been up to the hotel and the RCMP to secure the building.

Inside the hotel, Harper steadfastly defended his record, while expressing empathy for Canadians who are caught up in the stock market turmoil.

With a report by CTV British Columbia's Reshmi Nair.