Thank you, Chair.
Mr. Topp, I'm not normally a member of this committee, so I've come in today with...but this is an issue of interest to all parliamentarians, I think, and increasingly to Canadians.
I want to touch on what you were just going to, which is the use of prorogation in terms of exceptional use and normal use. Canadians have a sense now that the government prorogued in each of the last two years, 2009 and 2008, but in fact it has prorogued three years in a row. In 2007, the House was due to come back in mid-September and the House was prorogued to October. There were some new ministers being sworn in and so on. That wasn't raised much as a national issue, because it was seen as a “normal”--if you could use that term--use of prorogation.
I want to ask you to what extent you think, in dealing with prorogation, you have to look at whether there are times that prorogation is necessary, sensible. Some prorogations may last a week, a day, depending on the circumstance; it may be because the Prime Minister is going to a meeting that it's been prorogued, as opposed to what happened in 2009 and 2008.
You were straying a bit in that direction, talking about Saskatchewan, and I wonder if there's anything else you would add about the difference between whether you call it normal or unexceptional prorogation versus other prorogations.