Yes, I can, all the way from my little corner here in Grand Falls—Windsor, Newfoundland.
It's funny you mentioned that because if you look at all that has been done and the changes that we've made, I think we can make more, when it comes to the rules of the House of Commons. I do. Now I may go too far with it, but I think we've made some changes. That's another thing that's going to happen. That's another reason why we say the ground has shifted beneath our feet.
The last time I voted in the House of Commons—this is probably too much information— I was running on a treadmill in Sandy Point, Newfoundland and Labrador. I used this to vote. Yep. I voted. It's my right to vote. It's my responsibility to vote on behalf of my constituents. It was transparent. It was posted up there, and I realized that, my goodness, life has changed for us dramatically.
As I mentioned earlier, we used to vote like it was the 19th century, stand up, sit down, stand up, sit down. It's fine if you like that, but it creates some long times in the House of Commons. You take people who are young parents, it's not easy when you have to be seconded into one little place and you have to stay there for hours doing the voting when you can now do this. Now that we've caught up with technology, that's great. If someone had said I could vote in the House of Commons on my phone after the last election, it was not even close to being possible. In the House of Commons, we don't even have a clock to tell you how long you have left to speak. We're probably the only place that does that.
Anyway, I'll even help the opposition by saying I've gone off topic, and I'll bring myself back. Sorry.
Ms. Vecchio, I apologize. I know it's your motion. Let me just get back to where I was.
Let's go back to prorogation again because I think that's the fundamental part about this. Members are released from their parliamentary duties after prorogation until the new session starts. The committees resume activities and are reconvened. We have to go through the process of committee work again, which makes sense. The government has a different direction or their policies are taking a different direction, then you have to dissolve the committees and put them back because the whole point of committee is to analyze legislation. So that needs to be reconfigured. That I get.
I'm glad private members' bills are okay because if you think about it, a private member's bill is something that you hold deep within your heart as a true piece of legislation that should be passed. Truly, it should be a law of this country or a motion to say that we should do good by this country. I don't think that changes much. Let's say you want to extend sick benefits from 15 to 26 weeks. I had a private member's bill which did that many years ago. Fortunately, it's done now. But at the time, that doesn't change. If 15 weeks doesn't cut it, we need more in the EI system to allow for people who are off work because they are sick through no fault of their own.
You're probably thinking now—and I'm just presupposing here—if this is prorogation in Canada, how does prorogation work for the people who invented it, the U.K.? Ken McDonald, I'm glad you asked because I know you're asking me. I could see your face in anticipation.
As for prorogation in the United Kingdom, constitutional law usually used to mark the end of a parliamentary session much like our own. It's part of the royal prerogative. It's the name given to the period between the end of the session of the U.K. parliament and the state opening of parliament that begins the next session. That's basically the same as ours. Nothing changes there. That's all part and parcel of where we got it from.
But it's very different in the origins of prorogation. The Queen formally prorogues Parliament on the advice of the Privy Council, the Privy Council, of course, being the cabinet. Prorogation usually takes the form of an announcement on behalf of the Queen. She did it recently. She prorogued parliament in her nineties. God love her. As with the state opening, it made both Houses...of course they have the House of Lords and House of Commons. MPs attend the House of Lords chamber to listen to the speech.
All of that is much the same. What happens to bills still in progress during prorogation? Prorogation brings to an end nearly all parliamentary business. I suspect—I don't know, but perhaps Mr. Nater could tell me the difference here as he's more of a scholar about this stuff than I am—they go further when it comes to prorogation and the determination of government business of the day, like the bills and so on and so forth. At least that's my impression. It's a serious thing, taken way back when.
Recently in the U.K., they went to the Supreme Court over the prorogation that was put on by Mr. Johnson at the time. It became very contentious, to say the least, because they were all bordering on the idea of minority parliaments. They twisted themselves into pretzels over how they were going to do this. That's when the Supreme Court got involved.
A session of parliament runs from the state opening of parliament. In the past, this has usually been November through the following November. They used to take longer periods of time to do this, up until recent memory. This is how they did things in the U.K.
At the origins of what was prorogation in the U.K., early prorogation ceremonies had four key elements. First the speaker made a speech mainly concerned with a subsidy bill. Now this is how they describe a subsidy bill. This is for sheer entertainment purposes. It's really kind of funny. They call it a bill “for the better support of Her Majesty's household”. I found that rather amusing.
Then there was the Lord Chancellor or the Lord Keeper, another official of the royal household. The person who was involved had a title and the person was the Lord Keeper. I'm not sure if it exists, but if you asked the average British person what a “lord keeper” is, you'd probably see the best goaltender in soccer in all of the U.K. Otherwise, the Lord Keeper actually has a title and is part of Her Majesty's household that deals with this sort of thing.
The Lord Chancellor either prorogued or dissolved parliament, according to the sovereign's instructions. The sovereign was customarily present on these occasions and, from the 17th century onward, usually made the speech before prorogation or dissolution. Well, how about that?
There were two elements of it, which we used to do as well, if memory serves, where you had a speech at the ending and then you had a speech at the beginning. Of course, the speech at the ending was probably more towards justification. I would assume that now with modern communications it's quite evident why or at least you have to explain why you are doing this prorogation. What's more important, though, is when the House begins and you have the Speech from the Throne.
That's not the only reason you prorogue, but that's the most important part. You have to lay out for the country exactly what you're trying to do and where you want to go. Where you want to go really reverse engineers an answer as to where you've been and why you've done what you've done.
Personally, I've never witnessed a speech at prorogation within the context of, say, a Speech from the Throne, but I wouldn't feel it's really necessary. I say that for any party that's in government. I think that's probably a bit much. In saying that, it is quite something.
At this stage you're probably wondering one of two things: one, when will he be quiet, and two, what do they do in Australia?
Let's go down under, shall we? What do they do? They, of course, have the same system as we do. That being said, let's get to it.