Thank you for the invitation to appear.
I'm a historian with an interest in political and constitutional history, particularly the role of the Canadian Crown. Prorogation and dissolution of Parliament are among the Crown’s prerogative powers.
Prorogations throughout Canada’s history have seldom attracted attention, and the term was not really part of the general vocabulary. To the extent that it was, it was more apt to be understood as a routine procedure to end a parliamentary session.
Similarly, in the U.K., annual prorogations have been the norm, although Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s 2019 request amid the Brexit deadline suddenly brought prorogation into controversy.
In majority governments, controversies over prorogation are rare. I’m currently at work on a book on the 1921 federal election. The advent of the Progressive Party gave rise that year to Canada’s first post-Confederation minority government. That's also a link in the chain of events leading to the famous 1926 King-Byng constitutional controversy over the Governor General’s refusal of advice for dissolution.
The fact that Canada had a long run of majority governments from 1979 to 2004 meant that there were fewer opportunities for prorogations to be used in a way that excited controversy. At times, however, it was arguably a tactic to evade probes of wrongdoing. This has been alleged of the 2003 prorogation as details of the sponsorship scandal emerged, although media or opposition attention at the time was seldom directed at prorogation per se.
A new level of scrutiny followed after December 2008, when prorogation was used to stave off a non-confidence vote in a minority government situation. At the time, I wrote that the Governor General was correct in following the Prime Minister’s advice for prorogation. It seemed apparent that the prorogation was indeed intended to derail the planned NDP-Liberal coalition that sought to govern with Bloc Québécois support.
However, for the Governor General to refuse the advice of the Prime Minister, who had not yet lost a confidence vote, would have been a very serious step, used only in the gravest emergency. The opposition was delayed, but not prevented, from having an opportunity to withdraw confidence from the government. When Parliament resumed in January 2009, it chose not to do so.
At the time of the 2008 prorogation, I wrote about another long-ago controversial prorogation. At the height of the Pacific scandal in 1873, with John A. Macdonald rapidly losing support in the House of Commons, he requested that the Governor General prorogue Parliament. While that ended the investigative committee, it didn't end the controversy. Macdonald resigned when Parliament resumed a few weeks later, with Lord Dufferin then calling Liberal leader Alexander Mackenzie to form a government.
The 2008 controversy over prorogation has made any use of this procedure a matter for greater scrutiny. The use of prorogation in December 2009, which had the effect of suspending a committee investigating treatment of Afghan detainees, attracted particular attention as a result. Standing Order 32(7) would seem to make this scrutiny a permanent condition.
Canada’s 42nd Parliament, we know, consisted of only one session, a rather unusual situation given the four-year life of the Parliament, so no prorogations were sought to end sessions in the usual way. In the past, some full-length Parliaments have had only two sessions, although this was unusual, and some have had as many as seven, but about four sessions was more the norm, meaning prorogations would be a regular occurrence.
The most recent prorogation of the 43rd Parliament in August 2020 had the unfortunate effect of interrupting the committee scrutinizing the WE Charity controversy, something that requires further investigation. That said, there is also a strong case that can be made that the unforeseen eruption of the COVID-19 crisis since the start of the 43rd Parliament provides a rationale for a new session, with a new Speech from the Throne setting out a fresh legislative program. For this reason, I think prorogation was entirely justifiable.
Thank you.