I just want to say that I appreciate Ms. Shanahan's discussion of the nature of collective responsibility for cabinet. I would draw her attention to page 30 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice. It talks a little bit about this, but also emphasizes that ministers do have individual responsibility as well. We read on page 30:
In terms of ministerial responsibility, Ministers have both individual and collective responsibilities to Parliament. The individual or personal responsibility of the Minister derives from a time when in practice and not just in theory the Crown governed; Ministers merely advised the Sovereign and were responsible to the Sovereign for their advice. The principle of individual ministerial responsibility holds that Ministers are accountable not only for their own actions as department heads, but also for the actions of their subordinates.... Virtually all departmental activity is carried out in the name of a Minister who, in turn, is responsible to Parliament for those acts. Ministers exercise power and are constitutionally responsible for the provision and conduct of government; Parliament holds them personally responsible for it.
If you then go to page 392 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice, under the discussion of prorogation and dissolution, it reads:
Prorogation of a Parliament, a prerogative act of the Crown taken on the advice of the Prime Minister, results in the termination of a session.
In the note on that, 110, it reads:
See decision of the Committee of the Privy Council, PC3374, on October 25, 1935, “Memorandum regarding certain of the functions of the Prime Minister”, which stated that recommendations (to the Crown) concerning the convocation and dissolution of Parliament are the “special prerogatives” of the Prime Minister.
Indeed, if you go to that order in council, what it will tell you is that this is a special prerogative of the Prime Minister specifically delineated by cabinet as an exception to the normal convention of collective responsibility, which is not to say that cabinet ministers aren't required to defend it, but it is to say that the Prime Minister plays a unique role here. It's listed alongside things such as the appointment of cabinet ministers.
Now, I don't think that we would want to say that the government House leader or any other minister is somehow responsible for the decisions of the Prime Minister on the composition of his cabinet, yet the decision to prorogue is laid beside that very prerogative of the Prime Minister, so I think that it's very clear that, in addition to collective responsibilities, members of cabinet have individual responsibilities, and when we talk about prorogation, it is a very special prerogative of the Prime Minister that's been singled out by the Privy Council itself as laying firmly on the shoulders of the Prime Minister and not as a collective decision of the cabinet.
I would invite any reflections Ms. Shanahan may have on those authorities.