Debates of March 17th, 2010

Opposition Motion—Prorogation

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, we often hear that Canadians are somewhat politically apathetic. In fact, they have tuned out because the politics of the House have almost become a blood sport. When the Prime Minister muzzled his cabinet, Canadians did not pay heed. Conservative backbenchers have been heard to refer to the PMO as the Kremlin, but Canadians did not pay attention.

When the Prime Minister beat down public commissioners, Canadians in general did not pay a lot of attention. However, the member referenced something very important. This abuse of the parliamentary procedure of prorogation that the Prime Minister engaged in finally seemed to have engaged Canadians and young Canadians especially—

[Joe Preston, Conservative, Elgin—Middlesex—London, ON]

How many ten percenters did you send out?

[Ed Fast, Conservative, Abbotsford, BC]

What about Jean Chrétien? What about Trudeau?

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Order, please. This is not going to be a shouting match. The hon. member will complete his question and the member will answer it.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, it seems that Canadians woke up and realized what was at stake. It was not someone else's democratic rights that were being taken away. It was their House of Commons that was being padlocked.

Would the hon. member not agree that this has now provided us with an opportunity to put checks and balances in place to ensure this sort of abuse never takes place again and that the vast majority of Canadians and young Canadians would support such a measure?

[David Christopherson, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would agree very much that Canadians are looking for this. We do not get very many opposition days and that is why we used up one of our precious opposition days on this issue. I agree with the member and made the comment in my remarks about the young people and how they were particularly angered. That is the word that comes to mind, but they were a lot more than that. They viscerally felt how wrong, unfair and undemocratic it was to unilaterally shut down their Parliament for the sole purpose of running away from answering questions. Our role as the opposition is to check and balance. Our system is that we ask the government questions every day and hold the ministers accountable every day. They do not do that in the congressional system in the United States. They do it very differently. They have their own checks and balances.

What we are saying is that at this point in time in Canada we need to tweak the rules just a bit around prorogation because we have clear evidence of abuse. We have things that we can do to change it and it is up to us to utilize our power as the majority in the House to change those rules on behalf of the Canadians who saw their House shut down.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, at the outset, I would like to inform the Chair that I will be splitting my time with my hon. colleague from Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre.

It is with mixed thoughts that I rise to address the motion proposed by the NDP. Certainly, I am disappointed that the opposition would exhaust precious time in the House of Commons on something that it is perfectly aware has always been a standard and routine process, rather than choosing to debate the real challenges facing our nation, such as the economy and jobs.

However, I also view this as an opportunity to reiterate that there is nothing unusual about this Parliament, in terms of how it has conducted itself. Contrary to the opposition's allegations, prorogation is in fact a normal part of the parliamentary process. It has played an important role in supporting a healthy democratic system since Confederation. It is a routine, constitutionally legitimate process that has occurred some 105 occasions in the 143 years of our nation's history.

It is also well established by constitutional convention that the Governor General prorogues Parliament on the advice of the Prime Minister, and there are practical reasons for this.

Prorogation plays an important role in the effective functioning of our parliamentary and democratic systems. When circumstances change, as has been the case with the serious economic situation we have encountered, it is perfectly normal that the government would want to pause to take stock and to consult Canadians. The prorogation of Parliament provides that necessary time, because the business of government does not end when Parliament is not sitting. In this case, the government used the time available to look carefully at our agenda and plan the next stages of our economic recovery.

In the past year, our government has introduced and implemented an important economic action plan, including a series of stimulus measures, to address the extraordinary economic circumstances brought on by the worldwide recession. As a result of these measures, 2010 is shaping up to be a more optimistic year for Canadians. We are beginning to see a fragile recovery taking place.

But our economy is not yet out of the woods, and that is where the prorogation period played a key role. We now have a plan in place to complete implementation of our economic action plan, to return to balanced budgets once the economy has fully recovered, and to build the economy of the future.

I would point out that on average since Confederation, there have been three or four throne speeches launching a new session per Parliament. Some Parliaments have heard as many as six or seven throne speeches.

Prorogation is a measure used by governments of all political stripes, both at the federal and provincial level. In both the 28th and the 30th Parliaments, former Prime Minister Trudeau prorogued Parliament three times.

At the provincial level, two provinces, Alberta and Ontario, have prorogued their legislative assemblies already this year.

The opposition alleges that the second session of the 40th Parliament was ended prematurely. However, it was consistent with typical sessions, which have lasted roughly one year on average.

Outside of sessions that include an election call, the average number of sitting days per session is 109 days. By contrast, there were 128 sitting days in the second session of this 40th Parliament.

Another myth the opposition has invented is that prorogation has resulted in a great deal of lost time in the House. On the contrary, in Parliaments where prorogation has occurred since the 33rd Parliament, days lost per Parliament have averaged about 20 days. The number of sitting days lost during this most recent prorogation was 22 days, which is only slightly higher. By contrast, when former Prime Minister Chrétien prorogued Parliament for the second time in the 37th Parliament, the number of sitting days lost was 25 days.

The final myth the opposition has attempted to spread is that this government has avoided its responsibility to be accountable to the House of Commons and, through the House, to the people of Canada.

Clearly, nothing could be further from the truth. We have put our agenda before Parliament in the Speech from the Throne. There is nothing stopping the opposition from voicing its confidence or its lack of confidence in our government.

With all the issues and problems facing Canadians, what keeps the NDP leader up at night? Is it the economy? Is it jobs? No, it is prorogation. In fact, the first thing the leader of the NDP did when Parliament opened was ask for emergency debate on prorogation.

The Speaker politely and somehow with a straight face refused to grant such a debate because it did not meet the criteria for an emergency. Today is the NDP's first supply day, the only supply day it gets in this supply period, the NDP's only opportunity to set the debate in this House, and what did it choose? The NDP chose to debate prorogation.

It is not just the NDP that is obsessing over prorogation. The Leader of the Opposition and the leader of the Bloc are also fixated on it. This NDP motion accomplishes nothing. A resolution of the House would have no effect on the powers of the Governor General or the Prime Minister. Likewise the Leader of the Opposition is proposing to change the Standing Orders to implement a similar measure, yet as with this motion, a change to the Standing Orders would also have no effect on the powers of the Governor General or the Prime Minister.

What is much more unsettling about this issue is that the opposition parties have resurrected their coalition in order to address it. Their ambitions have turned from taking power to diminishing power and once again they want to do this without an election. They want to use their majority to change the constitutional powers of the government.

For a moment, just imagine a majority government proposing to limit the constitutional powers of the opposition because it did not like how members conducted themselves. Imagine the reaction. The Leader of the Opposition keeps ducking his constitutional responsibilities, some would argue, by avoiding confidence motions, but we are not proposing to take that ability away from him. He is free to exercise that prerogative when he sees fit. The same holds true for the Prime Minister's prerogatives. Both opposition and government have specific responsibilities, and they have the prerogatives to carry them out.

I want to wrap up by highlighting the rampant hypocrisy of the Liberal-Bloc-NDP coalition of the prorogation outrage. They cannot even live up to their own standard. They are reacting to a mechanism they have all used and supported as standard procedure in legislatures across Canada. It is a longstanding normal practice to end and begin sessions. As I noted earlier, we know that on average at the federal level sessions have lasted a year. Both Liberal and Conservative governments have prorogued a session less than a year into that session.

There are no NDP and Bloc prorogation statistics at the federal level, thankfully, but there are provincial records. When René Lévesque was leader of the Parti Québécois, sister party of the Bloc, and premier of Quebec in the 31st legislature, he prorogued, get this, five times, and he prorogued four times in the 32nd legislature. The average length of a session under René Lévesque was 10 months.

The hon. member for Toronto Centre, who is now a Liberal, was recently crowned the king of proroguing in the press. When he was NDP premier of Ontario, he used prorogation three times to end sessions of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario, and he prorogued for much longer periods of time than this Parliament's recent prorogation.

The current NDP government in Manitoba has been in power for six legislatures and prorogued 23 times. Its 35th legislature had six sessions in it, and a number had five. The average duration of a session of the NDP government in Manitoba was 9.7 months.

We have all three members of the coalition who do not meet their own standard for prorogation, and the hypocrisy does not end there. The Leader of the Opposition made such a fuss about the prorogation of the second session. He put on a big show in front of the cameras. He held press conferences outside an empty chamber and had his members conducting phony committee hearings. In the National Post yesterday, Don Martin noted that just eight sitting days after declaring Parliament too pivotal to prorogue, the Liberal leader embarked on a week-long national tour, and one-third of his caucus did not even bother to show up for work. They made such a big fuss about showing up when the House was not sitting, but they disappeared shortly after the House started.

This government will not be distracted by the opposition's fixation with partisan games, their attempts to gain political favour with Canadians by circulating myths about a longstanding parliamentary procedure—

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Order. On a point of order, the hon. member for Scarborough—Rouge River.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am not apologizing for the point of order. I am quite sure I heard the hon. House leader refer to the presence or absence of another member in the House and I think that is out of order. He should recognize that. He should know it.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Yes, I do advise the hon. government House leader that it is inadvisable to refer to the presence or the absence of a sitting member of Parliament.

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Madam Speaker, I did not mention that he was not here today. I will just finish my remarks.

Canadians want their members of Parliament and their government to focus on issues that matter, real policies that support our economy, create jobs—

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

Order. Questions and comments. The hon. member for Edmonton—Strathcona.

[Linda Duncan, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will give the hon. member the opportunity to correct what I consider an incorrect statement made in his speech on the motion.

He stated that the business of government does not end on prorogation. In fact parliamentary hearings and the parliamentary committees are shut down, as were two critical hearings in my committee, about which the public was very upset. The government bills die.

Either this suggests a lack of sincerity in the government on the role of Parliament or on its own legislative agenda. Which is it?

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Madam Speaker, with all due respect to my colleague from Edmonton—Strathcona, clearly she does not understand the difference between Parliament and government.

What I said during my remarks was the business of government does not end when Parliament is not in session. By her logic, that would mean that when we go into winter recess, when we have a constituency break week and MPs return to their ridings to work diligently in their offices in their constituencies across the land, and during the long summer recess, the government ceases to function. Of course everyone understands that is not the case. That is what I was pointing out.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Madam Speaker, the hon. House leader mentioned at the start of his speech that the time in the House is “precious time”. I could not agree more.

In fact the House of Commons belongs to the people, and the debate here in this House is the oxygen of our democracy, although not always as clean as oxygen. It is precious time.

There is a logical disconnect. If he considers it such precious time and of such importance, why would the Prime Minister shut down Parliament and shut down the precious time we have for debate?

[Jay Hill, Conservative, Prince George—Peace River, BC]

Madam Speaker, I do believe that the time the House of Commons and the Senate of Canada are in session is precious time. I believe that all members of Parliament have a responsibility to try to use that time to the best of their abilities on the issues of great importance to Canadians.

As I laid out in my remarks, I believe those paramount issues right now to be the security of jobs, the security of Canadians, safety, the security of our men and women in our armed forces as they toil overseas, and we could go down a long list of all the important issues.

I do not believe for a second that Canadians are seized with the issue of prorogation. I laid that out in my remarks.

What really annoys me the most about the fact that we are debating, wasting Canadians' and Parliament's time today, wasting this time on a motion like this, what really annoys me about the issue of the hypocrisy of each one of those parties as they have laid out their support for trying to impose a change on the government about prorogation is that we have heard nothing in the past of all the instances of their own parties.

One of the most flagrant uses of prorogation was when former prime minister Jean Chrétien shut down Parliament when he was going to turn over the leadership to his successor, Paul Martin. He shut down Parliament to avoid the Auditor General's incoming report about the sponsorship scandal. Everybody remembers that.

Did we hear one word from any one of those parties about the abuse of Parliament in its being shut down to avoid the personal responsibility of the sitting prime minister over the sponsorship scandal? We heard not one word, and yet we put up with this nonsense here today.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague, the government House leader, for his remarks preceding mine.

Again, some of my remarks will underscore those made by my colleague, but I do want to set the stage by once again stating that prorogation is not an uncommon phenomenon. It is something that is constitutionally available to all prime ministers and, in fact, to premiers and territorial leaders as well.

In fact, over the course of our parliamentary history throughout our federation, over 105 prorogations have taken place and, I would point out, by all political parties of all political stripes, whether they be federal or provincial.

In my home province of Saskatchewan, former premiers Romanow, Calvert and even before that, Woodrow Lloyd, prorogued the provincial legislature on a regular basis. We have even seen in the province of Quebec that the Parti Québécois, from René Lévesque onward, and from Daniel Johnson to Bourassa, the legislature was prorogued on a regular basis. Hence, this is something that is quite common and done routinely. I stress the word “routinely”.

To make the kind of furor, to use kinds of examples the opposition parties are trying to exhibit here today to argue this is somehow an abuse of Parliament, is quite simply not factual.

I would point out also that the argument the opposition parties are trying to advance is that for some reason, this party, this government and this Prime Minister prorogued Parliament to avoid difficult questions. The example they have used is that our Prime Minister prorogued Parliament to try to avoid difficult questions on the Afghan detainee situation.

I would point out not only to my colleagues in the House but also to all Canadians who may be watching, that is absolutely factually incorrect. It was this government that formed the Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan to fully examine the role of the military and all of the details concerning the Afghan mission. It was our government that set up that committee.

If we had wanted to avoid questions, if we had wanted to avoid scrutiny of the Afghan detainee situation, all we had to do following prorogation was to fail to reconstitute that committee. That was within our purview. Did we do that? No. As a matter of fact, the first day after we returned, we set out a course to reconstitute all committees, and particularly the special committee on Afghanistan. That committee has now been reconstituted. All examinations of the events, our military and our government, and of all papers now legally available will be carried out, not only by the committee but also by special councils being set up to examine claims of abuse and of documents being hidden from the opposition.

We are far from avoiding scrutiny on Afghanistan. We are encouraging a fulsome discussion on that to demonstrate to Canadians that our military is not made up of war criminals. Quite frankly, that is what the opposition is contending. They are suggesting quite strongly, day after day, that our military, our brave men and women who are protecting not only the people of Afghanistan but also our own democracy, are somehow complicit in war crimes. The opposition is suggesting quite strongly that our brave men and women are knowingly complicit in war crimes because they are turning over Afghan detainees to sure and immediate torture. That is what the opposition is contending. I find that disgraceful.

We are not avoiding those questions. We want that examination. We want to defend our men and women in the military, and for that reason we have reconstituted the special committee on Afghanistan, where all of those questions can be answered.

In the few moments I have left, let me get into the real reason for the NDP motion today. It is not because they want to talk about prorogation. It is not because they think there has been an abuse of Parliament. Far from it. What the NDP is trying to do is to set the stage to allow it to form a coalition government with its coalition partners.

Let me be quite clear about this. If the provisions of the motion presented today by the NDP had in fact been allowed in December 2008, there would be a coalition government today. It was only because the Prime Minister prorogued Parliament that a coalition government did not take over, a coalition government that the vast majority of Canadians from coast to coast to coast absolutely rejected, overwhelmingly rejected, but that is the true motivation behind this motion today.

We all know the results of the 2008 election. The NDP received approximately 18% of the vote nationally. That means 82% of Canadians did not want to see it heading up a government. The Liberal Party received approximately 23%, meaning that approximately 77% of Canadians said they did not want to see a Liberal led government. The Bloc Québécois obviously can never form government because it only represents the province of Quebec and only runs candidates in the province of Quebec. Canadians would not want to see it head up a government, but that is exactly what the coalition partners tried to do.

We know this to be factually correct. This is not simply an allegation that I am standing here and saying to the House. We know this to be factually correct. Let us go back and revisit that dark time in Canadian political history just for a moment, to confirm what I am saying.

We know, because there was a taped conversation between the leader of the New Democratic Party and his own caucus, that the leader of the NDP confirmed he had been speaking with the Bloc Québécois months before the 2008 election. That was also confirmed by Mr. Brian Topp, the former campaign director of the NDP during the 2008 election, in his book, where he said that this deal had been in the works for many, many months.

Even during the election, when all of the leaders from the opposition side were asked if they would agree to a coalition government, they all said no; but in fact we know that was not being honest, because there was a deal in the works before the election was even called.

Canadians spoke loudly and clearly on what they thought about a coalition government. They rejected it. Thus I again point out to the House and to all Canadians that if the provisions of the motion before us today were in effect in December of 2008, there would be a coalition government in this country today. The leader of that coalition government would be the leader of the Liberal Party, who received 23% support in the 2008 election, the lowest percentage of Liberal support in generations. Yet that person would be our prime minister, thanks to the schemes outlined and designed by the NDP.

Prorogation has its place in the Constitution. It has executive powers that give the prime minister of the day the perfect right to prorogue Parliament for legitimate purposes; and I would contend that in December of 2008, it was done for very legitimate purposes, as it was most recently.

[Jim Maloway, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank the member for his presentation, as much as I disagree with it.

The whole scenario today reminds me of the book Animal Farm. We have come full circle here. That party self-destructed a number of years ago, with only two of its members being elected in 1993, and the Reform Party thereafter became the ascendant group. How things have changed. We have watched these members now become the government and, quite honestly, they look and act exactly like the Liberals they replaced.

They talked about corruption and the lack of democracy, and they were going to engage in direct democracy, and all of this has just gone now. Power obviously corrupts.

They talk about provincial parties using prorogation. The fact of the matter is that provincial party leaders actually talk to one another. The premier talks with the opposition leader. Hence, the opposition leader at the provincial level knows what is going on and knows that when the legislative agenda is finished, the legislature will be prorogued. They do it more or less by agreement, even though the premier can simply do it on its own.

However, what this government is doing and what is different about it is that it is proroguing when it finds the opposition gaining steam on an issue. When the opposition is making hay on an issue, then the government decides to prorogue. What was the result? It lost 10 percentage points after prorogation. I do not think the government will do it again.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Madam Speaker, I again totally reject the premise of my hon. colleague's question.

Let me point out a couple of things.

Number one, when he talks about prorogation being within the purview of provincial governments and the premiers therein, he is quite correct. However, to say that is done entirely in consultation is quite incorrect. In fact, my colleague, the hon. government House leader, pointed out the most egregious use of prorogation, which occurred back in a former Liberal administration when then Prime Minister Chrétien prorogued Parliament to avoid answering questions on the sponsorship scandal, a scandal that occurred under his watch.

We also have found, on a provincial basis, that when the current member for Toronto Centre was premier of Ontario, he prorogued three times in three years to avoid the difficult questions facing his government, a one-term government, by the way.

There is absolutely no veracity to the statements made by my hon. colleague. What I would point out is simply this. If the opposition had any credibility behind its claims that we prorogued to avoid questions, why then did we reconstitute the special committee on Afghanistan? Why then did we offer to have Justice Frank Iacobucci examine all documents? The opposition's credibility on that issue is gone.

Canadians are not seized with this issue. They are seized with the economy, and that is what we are seized with. It is shameful that the opposition does not share our vision for the economy and the future of this country.

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Madam Speaker, there is a lot of stuff I just heard that seems to be, let us just say, made up.

His colleague, the government House leader, says that government does not stop during a prorogation. That is probably true. However, Parliament sure as heck does. The current government shut it down dead. There are still committees of this House that are not up and running yet. We were shut down between December 30, 2009, and March 3, 2010, and that is the truth.

His colleague said there are prerogatives of the Prime Minister. Does he think the Prime Minister is king? What are those prerogatives? Tell us now what the prerogatives of the Prime Minister are.

[The Acting Speaker, NDP, Denise Savoie]

The hon. parliamentary secretary has less than a minute to respond.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Thank you, Madam Speaker. I will not take a full minute.

It is unfortunate. The member opposite is posing a question to my colleague who finished making--

[Derek Lee, Liberal, Scarborough—Rouge River, ON]

Tell us what the prerogatives are.

[Tom Lukiwski, Conservative, Regina—Lumsden—Lake Centre, SK]

Madam Speaker, it always seems that when the opposition members start squealing in their seats it is because we touched a nerve and they are embarrassed by it.

I will try to answer if I can do so without interruption.

He speaks of the fact that committees are yet to get up and running. Upon returning to this House, we immediately set out a course of action to reconstitute all committees immediately. Committees were called. Organizing committees have already been concluded. Committees are going up and will be returning to action as soon as possible. Hence, the impression that the member is trying to give that we have not reconstituted committees or have not fulfilled our duty to reconstitute them is absolutely incorrect.

[Marlene Jennings, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to take part in this debate on the motion put forward by our NDP colleagues.

I am happy to say that the Liberals will be supporting the NDP motion.

We will be supporting this motion because we Liberals agree that steps must be taken to prevent repeated abuses of the powers of the prime minister. Canadians have demanded swift action so that the current Prime Minister and future prime ministers, regardless of the party they may represent, can never again shut down Parliament in order to dodge legitimate questions of accountability from the opposition. That is the first thing.

Second, we believe that Parliament is the people's House and that Parliament is supreme. In this day and age, it is unconscionable for a prime minister to twice now dodge being accountable to Parliament through the abuse of prorogation.

The government House leader talked about how prorogation is a normal procedure. He is correct. Prorogation is a procedure that allows a prime minister, through the Governor General who has the power, to close Parliament, both the House of Commons and the Senate, without dissolving Parliament, which would require an election. In fact, under our Constitution, the constitutional power to prorogue is vested in the Governor General. A prime minister's role is to provide advice and to request prorogation of the Governor General who has the constitutional authority to refuse that request.

Traditionally, since Canada was first formed as a confederation, prorogation was used in what we call, and even the government House leader called, traditional circumstances. It was conventionally used in traditional circumstances as a legitimate tool for bringing one session of Parliament to an end after the bulk of the government's work that had been laid out in its throne speech for that session had been completed. It allows Parliament to begin again with a new throne speech and a new government agenda.

In this latest prorogation, the government did not achieve or complete the bulk of the work it had announced in its throne speech after the 2008 election. It had not. Nor had it achieved the bulk of the work it had announced in the throne speech that led to the parliamentary session that the Prime Minister prorogued in December 2009.

Previous prime ministers have not abused that conventional authority. We would have to go all the way back to 1873 when Sir John A. Macdonald, then prime minister, tried to stop Parliament from probing his railway scandal. That is when we can find another example of that kind of abuse.

The government House leader talked about the average days. Let us talk about that. The current Prime Minister's most recent parliamentary shutdown lasted 63 days after a session that was 128 days in length. Since 1964 prorogations have lasted 12 days on average, while parliamentary sessions have lasted 187 days.

Madam Speaker, I forgot to mention that I will be splitting my time with the member for Bonavista—Gander—Grand Falls—Windsor.

We will be supporting the NDP motion, but we believe that it does not go far enough. We will vote in favour of it. However, we believe that there are other measures that can also be taken. We presented a motion in the House, on which we did not get unanimous consent. We think there should be changes to the Standing Orders.

The motion that we presented, which I also presented to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, would require first, that the Prime Minister, before making a request for prorogation, provide written notice of his intention to do so at least 10 days in advance, together with his specific reasons for seeking prorogation.

Second, it would require the Prime Minister to bring the issue of prorogation and his reasons for seeking it before the House of Commons immediately for a full debate.

Third, unless the House otherwise consents, the Standing Orders, as we would like to see them changed, would prohibit a request for prorogation within the first 12 months of any session. Unless the House otherwise consents, it would prohibit a request for prorogation when a vote of confidence had been scheduled in the House.

Finally, it would allow the committees of the House of Commons to continue to function during the period of time that Parliament was prorogued.

It is quite interesting to note that the Conservative House leader and the deputy House leader or deputy whip, I am not sure of his position, have gone on about how the current Prime Minister has done nothing wrong, has not abused his authority in shutting down Parliament twice.

On March 2, I held the third forum on governance. I had a number of noted experts on Canadian constitutional Parliament, our parliamentary democracy. Most notable academics actually agreed with the proposal that I just described.

I also would like to mention Professor Weinstock, professor of philosophy at l'Université de Montréal. There is nobody on the face of this earth who would call Professor Weinstock a friend of the Liberals. Unlike the Conservatives, we Liberals are not afraid to have open discussion and debate with Canadians, including people who do not agree with us.

Professor Weinstock, at the March 2 forum on the state of Canada's parliamentary democracy, noted the importance of having clear constitutional conventions. He made an analogy to Sean Avery, an NHL hockey player. He said that while Mr. Avery did not technically violate the rules of hockey by intentionally trying to distract another player, his actions did violate the spirit of hockey as a sport. He made that analogy clearly and directly with the actions of the Prime Minister, who prorogued Parliament twice, an abuse of his authority: the first time to avoid a confidence vote; and the second time, most recently, December 30, 2009, in order to try and stifle questions about the torture scandal in which the Conservative government, not our military, is involved.

The Prime Minister in so doing violated the spirit of our parliamentary democracy. Shame on him and shame on every member of his caucus sitting in this House who have a duty and a responsibility to protect our parliamentary democracy, not to diminish it, not to erode it. That is exactly what the Prime Minister and the Conservative government has done. Some 225,000 Canadians joined a Facebook group to protest the abuse and the attack on our parliamentary democracy and on the supremacy of our Parliament by the Prime Minister.

The people's Parliament is not insignificant. It is a preoccupation for Canadians. It is a preoccupation for our young Canadians, our middle-aged Canadians and our senior Canadians. For any member of the Conservative government to say that it is not is a fabrication of the purest and clearest kind.

Liberals will support the NDP motion, and we will continue to push on our own motion.