Certainly, that doesn't necessarily reflect the views of the general public, though, which I think was the point of Ms. Vecchio attempting to do a poll to engage members of the public in key decisions that are being made by this committee. I think it's a good point, but I'm sure we'll get to a vote eventually, I still have quite a few other arguments to make, though, and I'm quite prepared.... As I said, I had a good sleep last night.
I would start by saying that I want to make some remarks that relate to some key—I would say important—testimony that was made. We heard from quite a number of academics in our study so far, in particular, one I took a shine to. Her name was Dr. Lori Turnbull. You'll notice we have the same last name, but it's not because she's a member of my clan that I refer to her. I just really think that some of the points that she made really struck me as important, so I have a few things to say about that.
First, you'll remember that Dr. Lori Turnbull was in agreement that any time a government prorogues, there will be different perspectives on it, with differing speculation about the motives. This is a pretty obvious point to make, but I think it's also an important reminder. She stated, “Just because there is a narrative that is political doesn't mean there's not one that can exist at the same time that is more about policy planning.” She adds that these are “not mutually exclusive.” I think the distinction is important here. It's between policy planning and the political narrative, and these are two different things.
I really want to go in depth about the policy planning process and I think that really speaks to a narrative that I think much more closely approximates the truth of why the government prorogued. Despite the difference of opinion on motive and speculation about motive, our federal government was, as I mentioned, the first to ever table a rationale or a report to document its reasons for proroguing. Dr. Turnbull also agreed that the report does indeed provide a rationale for proroguing. Think about this logically: We said we would provide a rationale, and we did. She said, “The narrative in the report is quite consistent with that of the fiscal update that we saw in November and the fiscal snapshot we saw in July.” There's that word “consistent” popping up again, and we heard that multiple times before when I asked witnesses about why there would be such consistency in this process.
To me, it's logical that a government that's re-evaluating its priorities doesn't, and, because of a contextual shift as big and massive as a global pandemic, wouldn't abandon its values and its agenda entirely. You wouldn't expect a new Speech from the Throne to be entirely different. It would have some consistency, and we heard that from several witnesses when I asked them. They said, “Okay, I guess that would make sense.” That's in addition to the fact that Ms. Turnbull doesn't believe the Prime Minister needs to have good reasons; but, nevertheless, he did have a good reason, as we told Canadians over and over.
Going back, however, the narrative given for prorogation is consistent with what occurred after prorogation. As you'll recall, we heard from Allen Sutherland, from the Privy Council Office, who said we should have seen, “every government department engaged with chipping in ideas as to the sorts of thematics or signature items that might help give life to the Speech from the Throne.”
It went on to say that would have kicked in late in August or early in September, and then you would have seen a lot of iterations between the PMO and the Privy Council Office.
I want to just add a little bit from my perspective just to actually substantiate this claim that was made that there was an extensive consultation process done. This goes to the argument that really undermines, I think, the purpose of the motion before us. This is all related back to the motion. The motion assumes a theory or a narrative that is good for the opposition parties to be stimulating and amplifying because that message will have a negative effect on the position of the government and its ability to do its important work. I want to substantiate this claim that I think is substantiated by the extensive consultation work that went on during the time that Parliament was prorogued. I'll give you just a few examples of this locally. I'm not saying that this happened in every single riding across the country, because there were some differences, and we know this and I'm learning, as a new MP, that members of Parliament.... Ms. Vecchio put a poll.... I didn't put a poll on my Twitter account or my Facebook account, but during prorogation, I was quite excited to re-evaluate where we were at as a country, and in my riding I checked in with many of my constituents.
We did an extensive survey in the riding. We collected ideas and we got over 100 responses to a digital survey. We did a mail-out, a householder survey, as well, from which we got back quite a few responses. We did consultations with our seniors council and consultations with our youth council. Nationally we know that Minister Fortier had—I can't remember the exact number that she said—a very large number of consultations within our caucuses. I can't remember how many, but I know I participated in at least 12 of those consultations. These were really designed to identify what was on the minds of Canadians, what they had been experiencing, how businesses were affected, how families were affected by the pandemic, and sort of where we should go from where we were at that time.
I would say those extensive consultations provide a meaningful example that substantiates the reason we prorogued. This has been very consistent, and I believe it is important for opposition members to realize that this story is consistent. There's no inconsistency here. We've heard several witnesses call into question the timing of prorogation. Well, I would say to you that the timing makes perfect sense. It makes perfect sense because it basically happened within the first and the second wave. To me, it was a natural time to reflect on where we were at as a country and to reassess what was most important to our constituents, our communities and the country as a whole.
We also hosted a town hall session on Facebook Live to get thoughts and ideas to go into the throne speech. We launched a microsite on our website and got submissions from constituents on that. We received over 100 paper submissions, and then we received more than 400 submissions through the online microsite. Again there was lots of engagement there, and that was just in my riding. I can't speak for Mr. Arseneault or Mr. Lauzon or Mr. Blaikie or anybody else, but I'm sure we all reached out to our constituents at that time.
I understand consultation also went on between the Prime Minister and opposition leaders as well. He met with them. I think there is some documentation of that. I don't have that in front of me so I can't substantiate that.
I think some of the folks who may have participated in that may even be in the meeting today.
If the Prime Minister, like we maintain, has prorogued Parliament to reassess, to reset the table, reset the agenda, then isn't this consistent with hosting all of these consultations? I think Mr. Blaikie at one point, in some of the other questioning of witnesses, suggested in a way that we were taking a break and that we weren't working. It's preposterous to me to imply that MPs were not working during that time that we were prorogued. We know we only missed one day of House sitting time. By no means were members of Parliament laying on beaches and sitting on their hands. I think people were participating in that extensive consultation process.
