Once again, it is connected to the checks and balances I referred to when I began my opening remarks. In other words, Parliament has a certain number of mechanisms available to it to discipline the government.
I mentioned question period, committees and ministerial responsibility itself. As for the government, it also has a certain number of tools available to it to pressure Parliament, and those tools are well known. The primary ones are dissolution, of course, and prorogation. And, by extension, as I said, summoning Parliament.
Those are the mechanisms that are deemed to provide for checks and balances between the executive branch and the legislative branch within our parliamentary system.
With that background, I have concluded that the prorogation power is tied to the separation of powers, because it provides for these checks and balances between the legislative branch and the executive branch. It contributes to those checks and balances. Therefore, I do not see how the prorogation power could be dissociated from the very principle of the separation of powers.
Obviously, other experts may not share my opinion, but as I see it, it is really one of the checks and balances that are essential to our parliamentary system.