All right.
The events of recent weeks appear to validate the resilience, adaptability and vitality of Canada's constitutional system.
I shall be on the last page, for the translators, and I shall make my remarks quick.
The Government of Canada has long taken a laissez-faire approach to departmental emergency planning, which facilitates event-driven reactions, where the perceived urgency trumps the actual importance. I'm concerned about overzealous experts who want to outlaw certain types of behaviour without interventions from politicians. Ottawa mayor Jim Watson's intervention with regard to people actually being able to have a beer in the driveway while respecting social distancing is a good example.
Especially during a time of crisis, Parliament has a supreme duty to hold the executive to account. Canadians need continuous parliamentary audit of the executive and the bureaucracy's judgment.
During the First World War, high commands often found themselves at odds with national assemblies. Indeed, national assemblies had conceded extra powers to the executive branch and exercised restraint over the way their military prosecuted the war. Assuming the war would be brief, they deferred to experts and professionals, but in the wake of a succession of failed offences and military stagnation, parliamentarians demurred. They attempted to regain control of the war effort by injecting criticism and new ideas. Georges Clemenceau, when he became premier of France in 1917, famously surmised, “War is too serious a matter to leave to soldiers.”
Then I go through a series of issues where the British generals got it wrong and Winston Churchill got it right. Military strategy requires civilian perspective and leadership. That's what we learn from civil-military relations. To paraphrase Clemenceau, a pandemic is too important to leave to health experts or the executive alone, hence the importance of the role of Parliament. Never has it been more important than today.