That's fair.
Very quickly, the reason I brought that up was that I was on the road with the Dogs— I'm going to climb back up now—when former prime minister Harper prorogued. I remember sitting down with some people in our organization wondering what this was. What's this prorogue thing? What does it mean? I didn't know what it meant. I'd been to Parliament Hill two times in my life and really don't remember. I was very young at that point.
Let's call a spade a spade. Prorogations are widely used. As the government already said when we reported it, prorogation was for the purpose of responding to the ongoing COVID pandemic. As a government, we needed to plan. We needed to focus and really get ready for what I would call the second wave. We didn't know what we were facing when we needed to prorogue. None of us did. Come on. None of us knew. Think back now a year and four months ago to January or February 2020. We didn't know what was going to hit us. We saw news reports about Wuhan and what was going on in China.
What we were faced with was unprecedented. When we were all sent home, we didn't know what we were going to have to face—the fears, the challenges, the deaths and the devastation. It wasn't just economic devastation. My lord, there was the personal devastation. We didn't know.
When we prorogued.... I think it's extremely important to point out the differences, because MP Vecchio's motion—and I'm not going to read it; I promise—is in respect to the committee's study of the government's reasons for proroguing. The motion is about studying the government's reasons for proroguing. That's what is says.
Let's all take a step back and think about that. We need to study the government's reasons for prorogation. What were the reasons for prorogation? We were facing the crisis of our lifetimes. We needed to prepare for the second wave— to plan and pivot.
It's not just to study the reasons for prorogation, but also (a), (b), (c), (d), (e), (f), (g) and (h). Let's invite the Kielburgers and the Perelmuters. Let's seize documents. Let's get this and let's call the Prime Minister.
Whether you agree or not, the reasons for prorogation were that we were faced with a crisis. I find it extremely interesting that, of course, the WE Charity makes its way in here. That's when even a guy like me.... I'm not, self-admittedly, the most partisan person in the world, but as soon as I read it...at that point, I really wasn't even involved with PROC. I was doing my thing on HUMA and life was good.
Then I read the motion, and come on. The first sentence refers to studying the reasons for prorogation, but then it's about this and that and WE. Then I said, “Well, hold on here. The Prime Minister has already testified, so why do you want him again?” We all know why. It's to get a clip or to get something in the news that night or try for a gotcha question.
The reasons we prorogued were that we needed to pivot, and pivot we have, and stand up for Canadians, and we have. The fact that we were asked in this motion to accept the study on the reasons for prorogation.... It is important to put into context how former prime minister Harper prorogued and the reasons versus what we did and how we prorogued.
For context, the people who are watching today will understand what we're debating, and obviously we're debating the amendment. I know people kind of get dug deep in this, but right now we are talking about MP Turnbull's amendment to MP Vecchio's motion.
Let's compare. I want to call that out. Let's compare that. We have prime minister Stephen Harper, who prorogued. There was an article. I'm not sure it's been quoted, but I know there was a New York Times article, and I won't read the whole article. I have them all here on my screen. I could read you enough articles, Madam Chair, on prorogation, the pros and cons and who did what and where that you wouldn't need a watch; you'd need a calendar to keep track of time for me. I have so much that I want to say about this and so many points I want to bring forward with respect to the motion and the amendment to the motion and so on and so forth.
Here's the article:
Canada’s parliamentary opposition reacted with outrage on Thursday after Prime Minister Stephen Harper shut down the legislature until Jan. 26, seeking to forestall a no-confidence vote that he was sure to lose and, possibly, provoking a constitutional crisis.
He was going to lose that. For context, this is a New York Times article:
The opposition fiercely criticized the decision to suspend Parliament, accusing Mr. Harper of undermining the nation’s democracy. “We have to say to Canadians, ‘Is this the kind of government you want?’ ” said Bob Rae, a member of the opposition Liberal Party. “Do we want a party in place that is so undemocratic that it will not meet...?”
That sentiment was echoed by constitutional scholars, who lamented that the governor general might have created a mechanism that future prime ministers could use to bypass the legislature....
I have another one from the CBC about Canadians outraged by Harper's use of prorogation:
Thousands of people attended rallies in towns and cities across Canada on Saturday to speak out against Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision....
There were thousands of protestors, and so on and so forth.
Let's compare that to the articles on what happened with us when we prorogued. The Hill Times article has the headline “Trudeau government says prorogation bought time to ‘build a robust’ response to pandemic, in new report”. In it it says:
“We knew our plan would need to get us not just through the weeks and months ahead, but even further down the road,” the report said. “This gave us the time we needed to do exactly that: to build a robust, responsive, and comprehensive approach to the challenges....”
The prorogation that happened with us versus the prorogation that happened in the Harper era are like apples and oranges; they're not even the same thing. We were faced with the challenge of a lifetime. We needed to pause, to reflect, to rebuild, to reboot and to move forward in the name of all Canadians.
Again, I understand fully why the Conservative Party moved forward with the motion about prorogation. I get it. They want to study it. Study it? They wrote the textbook here in this motion. It's like, “Let's invite everybody and the kitchen sink to testify, and let's ramp this up and let's make it a big public affair.” I've been in the backrooms of strategy, whether it's hockey, the salmon business or what have you. I absolutely totally get it when you have the court of public opinion behind you. It's politics. I get it.
They're like this: “You know what? We've got momentum. We've got people. Our phones are ringing off the hook. Let's go. Let's get this going. It's going to be good for us.” Well, news flash—a Wayne Long news flash—nobody cares. They want us to work together. They want us to find a way forward. MP Turnbull's amendment to the motion takes us forward.
I did an AMA last night. I do these AMAs; they're called “ask me anythings”. I do them pretty much every two weeks. I get great views. I get anywhere from 4,000 to 6,000 people watching them and, give or take, 200 or 300 questions in an hour. It's crazy. I always throw it out there and say, “Hey, it's Wayne. What's up?” I do a little ramble about what's going on in the riding. I do them live. Ask me anything, AMA, and talk about what you want, your concerns, your....
Since I've been subbing in here, I've done, I don't know, two or three of them. In the easily 3,000 questions, I would say, do you know how many questions I've had on prorogation? Do you know how many comments I've had about prorogation and PROC and amendments and subamendments? Do you know how many I've had out of the thousands? It's less than one. Okay? It's less than one. That's why I absolutely know that the right thing for us to do is to find a way forward, and MP Turnbull's amendment to the motion—we've held it up too many times—is a way forward.
Madam Chair, do you mind if I just take a drink of water? Is that okay?