The next question is for all three witnesses.
From listening to discussions with our previous witnesses about conventions and the attempt to develop conventions, it seems to me that we are all at fault--not just the witnesses, but also members of the committee, including me--in assuming that these conventions would, in some respects, be binding on the actors involved. That seems to suggest that we're assuming that they would be binding on the politicians. I think that's probably a mistake. I think if we could develop a convention, it would be one that would be binding on the Governor General. It would really be a question of being a convention on when it is inappropriate to receive advice from the Prime Minister and to reject that advice.
In the same way, when a Prime Minister comes and says, “I've just lost an election, but I'd like to stay on anyway”, the Governor General, necessarily, is bound by convention to reject that advice and say that he or she is going to go to the leader of the party that has the majority in the House in such a situation.
Similarly, it seems to me that this isn't really about limiting existing reserve powers. Rather, it is about redirecting powers.
I thought about how to ask this question. I'm not sure this is the best way, but let's try this out. We have two prorogations that have occurred in the past couple of years, and they are the subject of our hearings. Let's say that you had been the person on the telephone offering counsel to the Governor General at the time she received advice from the Prime Minister to prorogue. What advice would you have given? What kinds of rules would allow the counsel to reject the advice the Prime Minister was giving?
I'm not sure who to start with.