Mr. Speaker, I am very pleased to rise today to present this motion about ways to prevent the potential misuse of prorogation in our parliamentary system.
As I do so, let me note that I will be sharing my time this morning with the deputy opposition House leader, the hon. member for Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine. Among other things, she will be addressing some technical issues that have arisen since this motion first appeared on the order paper in April. We want to ensure that the motion is fully up to date.
Since notice circulated yesterday that this motion on prorogation was the topic we intended to offer for debate today, a couple of members from across the way have asked me privately why this particular choice was made, given that the House of Commons Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs has a prorogation study under way. That is a fair question, and I am happy to answer it.
The official opposition is, of course, fully aware of the work being done in the procedure committee, because we were the ones who initiated that work by that committee. However, there are at least four reasons why this motion today should proceed in any event.
First, the procedure committee is a very busy committee of this House. It is doing good work, but time is rapidly slipping by. The House is about to adjourn for the summer. As the Speaker just mentioned, we are on the final supply day. The last time the House adjourned for any significant amount of time, the Prime Minister, of course, took the further step of proroguing the House and Parliament altogether. Therefore, that threat of prorogation still hangs over Parliament.
In my view, and in our view on this side of the House, we need to put more effort into finding practical solutions to the prorogation issue. We need to put more horsepower behind this particular issue at this time.
Second, this motion is more comprehensive than the one before the procedure committee. It includes specific ideas for solutions to illegitimate requests for prorogation. The ideas include, for example, the requirement that the Prime Minister give notice that he intends to make a request for prorogation, and in addition, that he supply reasons as to why that request is reasonable.
There is also the suggestion that there ought to be a debate in this House after the notice is given but before the prorogation request is actually made.
Third, there is the suggestion in our motion that in certain circumstances, not only should there be a debate, but the formal consent of the House of Commons should be required, where appropriate.
Finally, we make the suggestion that, prorogation notwithstanding, the committees of the House of Commons, and indeed of the Senate, should continue to have the ability to function during a prorogation so that the wheels of democracy are not completely foreclosed.
For those reasons and because of the fact that our motion provides some specific suggestions to address the problem, we believe, again, that it is a timely and important motion to put forward.
With respect to the study under way in the procedure committee, it is, unfortunately, a rather invisible process. That is not a criticism of that committee. However, the issue is one that deserves greater public visibility.
This being the last opposition day in this sitting before the summer, it is timely to give the prorogation travesty some public profile once again.
This sitting began with a shameful padlock on Canadian democracy from December to March. The central institutions of parliamentary accountability were shut down, wrongfully, in our view. We all need to be reminded of that outrage and reminded of the spontaneous outrage of hundreds of thousands of ordinary Canadians who knew instinctively that what was going on with prorogation at that time was wrong.
Nearly a quarter of a million Canadians signed petitions on this subject. Thousands more turned out to public rallies. A hundred and thirty experts on parliamentary affairs and constitutional law wrote to the Prime Minister to point out the defects in what he was doing. Editorial opinion across the country was strongly averse to what the government and what the Prime Minister were doing with prorogation. They said, with a single loud voice, that it is wrong, and we want our democracy back. It is important to keep the public profile of this issue.
We need to make the point that prorogation is sadly a metaphor for something that is even worse. It is one way, but not the only way, this rather paranoid Conservative government tries regularly and relentlessly to avoid accountability, to subvert transparency, to muzzle criticism, to stifle dissent, and to silence voices that have the temerity to disagree with the government and to speak truth to power.
It all began with prorogation, and Parliament cannot allow that anti-democratic behaviour to be considered normal.
Back in 2005, the person who is now the Prime Minister of Canada said this:
When a government starts trying to cancel dissent or avoid dissent...is when it's rapidly losing its moral authority to govern.
Dissent is not tolerated by the Prime Minister, not in his cabinet, not in his caucus, and not even in Parliament, which he has padlocked twice in the past year and a half when the House of Commons kept asking tough questions about what the House considered to be Conservative wrongdoing.
Even more seriously, the Prime Minister resorts to character assassination and intimidation as an all too frequent partisan tactic. Think for example of Linda Keen, the former president of the Canadian Nuclear Safety Commission. Think of Paul Kennedy, the former head of the Commission for Public Complaints Against the RCMP. Think of Peter Tinsley, the former head of the Military Police Complaints Commission. Think of Kevin Page, the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Think of the independent officers of Parliament who are intended to supervise such fundamental things as free and fair elections, access to information, and ethics. They have all been vilified by the government when they looked into evidence of Conservative misconduct.
Perhaps the greatest abuse was aimed at long-time public servant and diplomat Richard Colvin, who dared to speak truth to power about the risk of torture in Afghanistan. His reputation was viciously maligned to belittle him personally, but equally, to intimidate other public servants and keep them from reporting wrongdoing.
Beyond the political precinct, think of church organizations, such as Kairos. Think of foreign aid groups, such as the Canadian Council for International Co-operation. Think of a vast array of women's organizations. Think of the Canadian Council on Learning. They have all had their funding slashed and have been intimidated by the government for dissenting from Conservative dogma.
All of these concerns have recently been verified and amplified by many of Canada's top journalists. Let me quote from the Canadian Press news service on June 11, just a few days ago, when it said this:
Journalism associations from across the country have issued a stern rebuke against the [present] government and called on reporters to fight back against its tight information control....“Under [this] Prime Minister...the flow of information out of Ottawa has slowed to a trickle. Genuine transparency is replaced by slick propaganda and spin designed to manipulate public opinion.
Now we have the ultimate absurdity of the Prime Minister purporting to dictate to Parliament who can be called as witnesses to testify before parliamentary committees and who cannot. Contrary to the powers of Parliament, and contrary to law, the Prime Minister is trying to shield political staff members who work for him and his cabinet from being called to testify. He says that they are too junior, and it is too tough on them to appear before these committees.
These people are not little kids. They earn six-figure salaries, up to $150,000 or more. They handle the government's most sensitive files. They manage things such as the lobbying activities of people like Rahim Jaffer. They interfere directly and personally in the release of information being processed under Canada's access to information law, and they make profound government policy announcements, such as, for example, the news that the government was going to prorogue Parliament last December and padlock Canadian democracy until March. Interestingly enough, that announcement was not made by the Prime Minister. It was made by his press secretary.
These examples simply show the absurdity of the government's position. It brings us full circle to the prorogation issue itself, and it illustrates again why this motion is up for debate today and why the House of Commons should adopt it.
