Thank you for those questions.
I learned through hard experience to leave it to the law clerks to do the drafting, so it seems to me that what's appropriate to do is to discuss the drafting instructions and what their intent is. I think it's appropriate to begin with great clarity—because clarity has served this Parliament in the past—and to say that the goal we are seeking is that when a confidence vote is before the House, the House shall not be prorogued.
We know that the House of Commons cannot issue orders to the crown. We also know that the history of Parliament, going back to a field in 1215, is of slow, succeeding acts that can be interpreted as acts of lèse-majesté in which we have respectfully asked the crown to be so kind as to not shut down the people's House when it is dealing with a confidence matter, which is its central role.
So I do think that clear words need to be found. I had a look at these constitutional articles that I'm referring to. These constitutional articles and the three constitutions I've referred to are very elegantly written, with very few words, clear words that cannot be misinterpreted, whose intent is clear. That's what I call on you to do. I believe the law clerk can achieve that.
So I do believe, as I have argued, that when or if, as I urge you, we could get to a world in which the House makes it clear that it is not to be prorogued when a confidence vote is in front of it, what is a confidence vote merits definition—perhaps not an exclusive definition, because it's hard to do that, but certainly with greater clarity than there is today.
I refer you to this model of voting to say, “There shall now be an election”, which is often what a confidence vote is understood as. For example, when the Clark government was defeated, everybody understood that an election therefore resulted. But I think this growing practice of constructive votes of no confidence is also very useful, because it eliminates all of the issues of legitimacy around Parliament's role in establishing who the ministry shall be, which is, of course, the guts of responsible government.
On this very interesting issue of enforceability, I think it is a mistake at this stage of the game to put enforceability measures into these acts, because I submit that it risks trivializing what is the central issue of responsible government, which is can Parliament determine who the ministry is?
Just to be absolutely blunt about it, speaking to you from having seen the other side of the table—in a provincial legislature, to be clear, which is a very different game—faced with a choice between defeat and replacement and having to give up some opposition days, many governments would accept giving up the opposition days. So we run the risk of trivializing the act of responsible government and of accountability by establishing penalties. We run the risk of turning them into a cost of doing business. I think that's very unwise when we're talking about the central power of Parliament.
I submit that the central power of Parliament should be spoken about in appropriate terms and without complexity or trivialization, and I believe the Governor General would get the message if it were spoken clearly, as has been the case many, many other times in the past. For example, the principle that money bills shall originate in the House of Commons was one that was voted by a House of Commons.
This interesting revelation that the Governor General needs to listen to the Speaker, which would have been useful to know in the recent past, is an interesting mechanism that could perhaps be used to hard-wire in that the Governor General shall listen to the House of Commons before interfering in its core function that it performs in our Parliament.