Evidence of meeting #17 for Procedure and House Affairs in the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was ontario.
A recording is available from Parliament.
1:05 p.m.
Associate Professor, Université de Montréal, As an Individual
—“(unlike the position in some other democracies).”
I hope you can all read that case. I make the case that you read all that—
1:05 p.m.
Liberal
Peter Fragiskatos Liberal London North Centre, ON
Those two committees studied the WE issue. I know from experience with finance that that was the issue we looked at.
1:05 p.m.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Ruby Sahota
That's all the time we have, to both of you.
Thank you very much.
Madame Normandin, you have two and a half minutes.
1:05 p.m.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
My questions are for you, Professor Turp.
Let me refer you to the 2019 ruling of the U.K. Supreme Court. To your knowledge, was the ruling purely declaratory or was it binding? Was it more of a tool to guide people in their future electoral choices?
Could this ruling be useful here? For example, could the Governor General obtain an opinion from the court on whether or not to authorize the prorogation?
1:05 p.m.
Associate Professor, Université de Montréal, As an Individual
That's very interesting, because this is a binding decision, not a reference or an opinion of the Supreme Court. In fact, the appeal to the Supreme Court was initiated by one woman, whom even the Attorney General of Scotland supported.
The U.K. Minister of Justice immediately recognized the authority of the decision, and concrete steps were taken in the U.K. to overturn the decision.
Since you are letting me talk about this ruling, I will read the remainder of paragraph 55. I will do so in English, since that is the original language.
It says, “(unlike the position in some other democracies)”.
The Government exists because it has the confidence of the House of Commons. It has no democratic legitimacy other than that. This means that it is accountable to the House of Commons—and indeed to the House of Lords—for its actions, remembering always that the actual task of governing is for the executive and not for Parliament or the courts. The first question, therefore, is whether the Prime Minister’s action had the effect of frustrating or preventing the constitutional role of Parliament in holding the Government to account.
It is very difficult to think that this role was not frustrated in the case of the August 18 prorogation.
1:05 p.m.
Bloc
Christine Normandin Bloc Saint-Jean, QC
If the Constitution were to be amended, would I be correct in saying that it would probably be through section 44? It would be done in Parliament, without having to enter into very lengthy negotiations with the provinces.
1:05 p.m.
Associate Professor, Université de Montréal, As an Individual
It's not as clear-cut as that.
The answer is difficult.
It may possibly be done by section 44, but there are other views on this issue.
1:05 p.m.
Liberal
1:05 p.m.
NDP
Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
Thank you.
I'd like to come back to my previous question and ask Professor Lagassé to weigh in on what kinds of options might be available to Parliament to assert a greater influence for itself on the question of when and how Parliament either prorogues or dissolves.
1:10 p.m.
Associate Professor, International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Sir, I would simply point out that a number of reforms have been proposed, some of them trying to create a wedge between the Prime Minister and the Governor General. That may be one avenue that we could pursue. Constitutionally, I suspect that would fall apart before the courts.
More fundamentally, I would also make the point that if we look at the United Kingdom, recent efforts to remove the dissolution prerogative and to give it to the House of Commons was one effort, but that is now being repealed given the unintended consequences that it had. Similarly, we need to bear in mind that we've even lauded the U.K. Supreme Court quite a bit here today, but this has led to a pushback on the part of the government in the United Kingdom to reduce its powers precisely in this area. We need to be mindful of the types of reforms we pursue.
Fundamentally, I would say this is a question of norms. This is a question of how we use power. That can only be changed by a change in how political actors operate and think about what is legitimate and what is not. You cannot change it through constitutional conventions necessarily. You cannot necessarily change it through codification because there will always be gaps, there will always be measures and efforts to use powers in ways that may be disagreeable. There's no clear solution here, other than changing the political norms of what is acceptable around the use of power. That is fundamentally what I point to, because, as we've seen in the United Kingdom, efforts to simply remove these powers or transfer them to the House of Commons come with their own problems.
1:10 p.m.
NDP
Daniel Blaikie NDP Elmwood—Transcona, MB
I do hear that. I think sometimes those efforts to box in those powers are part and parcel of driving changes in the norms, however. If you don't have concrete proposals about how you might change things or prerogatives the government might lose if they don't use them respectfully, then it's hard to change the culture and to change those norms.
Would Professor Brock like to weigh in on this question with the balance of my time?
1:10 p.m.
Prof. Kathy Brock
The role of Parliament is very important. One evolution that we've seen coming out of 2008 is for Parliament to provide information to the Governor General. You could make a requirement that, if there's a prorogation, information also goes from Parliament to the office of the Governor General.
1:10 p.m.
Liberal
1:10 p.m.
Conservative
Corey Tochor Conservative Saskatoon—University, SK
Thank you very much to our witnesses today.
What we're discussing here—let's get to the root of it—is the WE scandal, where a half a billion dollars of taxpayers' money went to a kids' charity that paid off the Prime Minister's mother, as we know, half a million dollars. That's the root or the cause of why we're here today.
This is a prime minister who has been ethically challenged. He's the only prime minister who has ever been visited by the Ethics Commissioner this many times. There is no other prime minister who has been found guilty of this, so that's the root of why we're here today.
To the witnesses, we have the deputy House leader, deputy whip and some of the leading Liberal leadership with us today. On these ethically challenged decisions that were made to prorogue.... It was done on the day that we were supposed to get evidence that was redacted, and now we have learned that it has been destroyed, so there are some additional ethical issues that arise from that.
I come from western Canada, and there has never been a time when we have been more disillusioned with our country, our leadership and the direction of this country. In the last nine months, we went into billions and now over a trillion dollars in debt that is going to affect future generations, who will have less opportunity because of the decisions of this government.
We've all been paying attention, but Canadians haven't, because we have a pandemic that we're dealing with, and they're not realizing how much peril we are in as a country. I guess my question to Mr. Lagassé is this: Do you think the current media landscape and the current population of Canada are paying attention to these issues?
1:10 p.m.
Associate Professor, International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
Sir, it's interesting that you ask that.
In my last class, yesterday, on Canadian government 101, this is exactly what we discussed. The fact of the matter is, for most people, their concern and their focus is on their immediate situation economically. Politically, I think it's fair to say that the proceedings in Parliament, as interesting as they may be to those of us in this room, are not front and centre in terms of what people are focused on, and I think that's a fair assessment.
Quite simply I would say that, no, I believe—and we see the public polling here—that Canadians are supportive of their governments and focused on the executive and its actions at this point in time. As much as it may be regrettable to somebody like myself, who is focused on Parliament, I don't believe that it is front and centre in their thinking at this point.
1:15 p.m.
Conservative
Corey Tochor Conservative Saskatoon—University, SK
Is that the pandemic, or do you think it's the changing landscape in media, such that people aren't consuming news like they used to, where this is going to get swept under the rug, or this is the desire of the leadership of the Liberals who are in the committee today that we're going to forget about this?
1:15 p.m.
Associate Professor, International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I think you can certainly run out the clock. I would simply point out that there's an interesting facet here. If you recall, in the last Parliament efforts to shut down the justice committee around another controversy were seen by the government as a means of getting out of a problem.
Ultimately, I would submit to you that it maybe didn't work out that well. Those of us who are in academia were saying that you may want to simply let these committees go. If there is no problem here, show it, get it over with and don't try to obfuscate, because it can have a blowback effect. Ultimately, I would submit to you that it did. It resulted in the government being reduced to a minority of seats or a plurality of seats in the House of Commons.
These efforts can ultimately come back to haunt governments if they're not careful, including around committees, so they may gather more attention than we realize.
1:15 p.m.
Conservative
Corey Tochor Conservative Saskatoon—University, SK
What would you say they would risk their government over, then? This has got to be pretty terrible if they go to these lengths. Would you agree?
1:15 p.m.
Associate Professor, International Affairs, University of Ottawa, As an Individual
I would say fundamentally that this is what's of interest. Political parties have an interest, I would say, in this. I suspect it should be in the government's interests to simply allow the committees to do their work because, whatever is there, for transparency sunlight is often the best disinfectant. As we saw in the last Parliament, it turns out that there may not have been the controversy there to which some are alluding. Therefore, it is often best to simply go ahead and allow these committees to do their work. I believe short-term political considerations oftentimes take the forefront, and long-term considerations should perhaps be taken into greater consideration.
Sir, I just don't know enough about...and I can't speculate about what may or may not be within the documents, so I'll stick to my institutional knowledge.
1:15 p.m.
Conservative
Corey Tochor Conservative Saskatoon—University, SK
It seems as though the documents have been destroyed, so, as Canadians, we're not going to find out just how bad it was that they would risk their government over this, and risk Canadian lives as well in the middle of a pandemic, which is disrespectful to all of the people who have been working so hard to counteract the effects of this pandemic. To prorogue during this time period is very challenging.
The Westminster style of democracy relies on a functioning media so that the public can be informed, good or bad, of the tools that we provide the government to conduct itself in a functioning—