Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Feb. 16th, 2021

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Discussions came into effect. They started a long time ago—

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

What happened on August 17?

Mr. Rodriguez, you're a very intelligent and very well-informed man. I'm sure that you were well prepared before coming to speak to the committee about this matter. The extremely significant event that happened on August 17 was the resignation of your Minister of Finance. That's quite significant. You shut down Parliament on August 18. What were the activities of Parliament when you decided to shut it down? What was happening in Parliament at that time?

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

We were discussing COVID-19 and a whole bunch of things.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Rodriguez, what exactly was going on?

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

At one point, we needed to make the decision to prorogue Parliament. Could we have done so a week earlier or a week later? Probably.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

I'll ask my question again. On August 17, the Minister of Finance resigned. On August 18, what was Parliament working on? I'm asking for a straightforward answer.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Parliament was working on COVID-19 measures, Mr. Therrien.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Parliament was focused on the WE Charity scandal. All the committees were focused on the scandal. When you shut down Parliament, you shut down the work on the WE Charity scandal. That's what you did.

The experts who appeared before the committee said that a prorogation is a time to wipe the slate clean, which you didn't do. We were continuing the work undertaken in March, the work that guided the economic policies on COVID-19. So there was nothing new.

The experts also said that Parliament couldn't be shut down for long because it was an essential tool for fighting COVID-19 and for our job as legislators. They said that, if the government had wanted to wipe the slate clean, they would have shut down Parliament on September 18. You shut it down on August 18.

Why didn't it make more sense to shut down Parliament on September 18? Why were you fine with Parliament not sitting for a month? Why didn't you do this on September 18 instead of August 18?

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Is it possible to write a Speech from the Throne in three or four days?

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Come on.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

That's basically what you're asking us, Mr. Therrien.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

It's very simple to rewrite a Speech from the Throne like the one you wrote, because there was no break. It was more of the same. You took the 2019 Speech from the Throne and added some of the COVID-19 items that we had been working on. That's it.

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Therrien, let's agree to disagree on that. I disagree completely.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Rodriguez—

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

I completely disagree with your approach, and that's fine.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Rodriguez, governing involves planning, which you haven't done since your government was elected in 2019. It would have been easy to plan for a Speech from the Throne and still let Parliament run. You could have prorogued Parliament on September 18, as suggested by all the experts who appeared before this committee. Parliament should have been shut down for as short a time as possible so that we could do our job.

Why didn't you wait until September 18, so that the committees could continue to work on the WE Charity scandal?

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

Mr. Therrien, Parliament has done its job, an excellent job in fact. We've worked together to pass bills. You'll recall the committees that we set up in June and July. We made sure that the opposition could ask as many questions as possible in the COVID-19 committees. You should recall this because you were there. The opposition had the opportunity to ask many more questions than usual and to play its role, which is crucial.

Now, is there any continuity? Of course. The pandemic has continued. It hasn't stopped. It hasn't taken a break. It has continued, and we're also continuing to do what needs to be done.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Why did you choose August 18?

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

A date is a date, Mr. Therrien. It could have taken place before or after.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

What you're telling me here encapsulates the way that you've been governing from the beginning. You're saying that it isn't a big deal—

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

You had a very clear purpose for doing this, even though you don't want to say it—

[Pablo Rodriguez, Liberal, Honoré-Mercier, QC]

We had to prepare for the second wave.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

You can't govern like this all the time, by picking one date or another, one vaccine or another, and so on. It doesn't work.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ruby Sahota]

Mr. Therrien, that's all the time we have for this round.

Next we have Mr. Blaikie for six minutes, please.

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Thank you very much.

You said a few times now that prorogation was necessary so that the government could work on the speech. How many people were working on this speech? What do you think government would...? What jobs would the government have been doing, if Parliament were sitting, that it didn't do during prorogation? What I'm hearing is that proroguing meant that the government was off the hook for all sorts of work that otherwise would have kept it so busy that it couldn't have written a half-hour speech.

What were the things the government wasn't doing while prorogation was in effect, so that you were able to commit so much time and resources to this apparently momentous speech?