Pomp and circumstance on Parliament Hill are about to get a little more complicated.
The most formal rituals ? speeches from the throne, twice-yearly royal assent ceremonies ? involve a lot of stately to-ing and fro-ing between the House of Commons and the Senate.
Easy enough when the two houses of Parliament are at opposite ends of the same building.

Centre Block is set to close for at least a decade. Photo by Saffron Blaze via Wikimedia Commons.
But with the closure next month of the iconic Centre Block for at least a decade?s worth of renovations, the Commons and the Senate will be housed in separate buildings. And so far, no one has decided how to deal with ceremonial parades between parliamentary chambers that are three city blocks apart, separated by a busy city street instead of just a corridor. ?It?s a very good question and it?s one that we are struggling with in terms of how we pull it off,? says Senate Speaker George Furey.
Consider what?s involved for throne speeches or formal royal assent:
Garbed in a black tail coat and bicorne hat, the Usher of the Black Rod ? officially the Queen?s personal attendant and messenger in Parliament and the most senior protocol officer in the upper house ? walks solemnly from the Senate to the Commons, preceded by three attendants. He raps three times on the Commons? door with his gold-tipped ebony cane and, once admitted, informs MPs that they?ve been summoned to the Senate by the Queen or her representative, the Governor Gener...