Procedure and House Affairs committee  That's right.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'm in the middle of writing the second edition now, so all of this is happening at a wonderful time for me.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  This is something I've actually given a fair amount of thought to and have been rewriting that chapter on the Governor General earlier this year. I would say yes: there is very important discretion left to the Governor General to decide whether to do this or to do that. But the most important caveat I now add to that statement is that while the Governor General or Lieutenant Governor has the freedom to make a decision one way or the other in certain circumstances, this is not in fact entirely their personal decision.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Right.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  This is one reason I was suggesting that the Standing Orders might be amended to state that all business would be carried over from one session to another, so if you had a routine prorogation at a set date, the normal understanding would be that all matters would be reinstated. The government has the advantage of a prorogation gap, as it were, to let matters settle, come back with a throne speech, re-present its position, and have a confidence motion, but then carry on with the business that was largely on the agenda before, with some new items.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  You've touched on an interesting issue. I think that gets to the heart of whether we could just rely on constitutional conventions and the informal understandings that had kind of structured prorogation powers. Up until perhaps 15 or 20 years ago, I think there was a very strong understanding of the nature of conventions and the importance of these moral rules, at least amongst the governing class.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  As far as I understand it, there is a routine reinstatement of a large amount of business; it's not all the business, but a large amount of business is routinely reinstated. So matters that began in one session would be picked up in the next session from essentially where they were previously.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I have in fact written two further pieces on the 2008 prorogation, in which I enlarge on a number of issues. My conclusion ends up being the same, but I think my appreciation of the nuances and the appreciation that there really is a considerable foundation for the opposing arguments....

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, and normally that would be definitive, and I think the procedural gaffe since Confederation was made by the official opposition in not standing up on that Thursday afternoon and asking the Speaker to defer the vote until Monday. It was nonsensical, in my view, for the three different parties to stand up and decry the economic statement and say they would be voting against it, and then an hour later walk into the House and vote confidence in the same government.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  One suggestion I had was for the House to pass a motion saying that it would support or approve--some kind of wording like that--the Governor General refusing a prorogation that hadn't been heard without its consent or was needed for an emergency. In that sense, the Governor General would be acting to reflect the wishes of the elected House of Commons rather than purely on personal prerogatives.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  All of the above. The main preference, as I had voiced to an earlier question, was to take the matter off the agenda, perhaps by just saying that there should normally be two sessions in a Parliament, with or without setting when the second session--

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. So you would have two two-year sessions in a Parliament. Just make it routine and carry on. Allow for emergencies and prorogation and that kind of circumstance, but let's just defuse the issue and ensure that Parliament gets on with its business.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  That's close enough. Yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'm drawing a distinction between perhaps an ordinary motion that simply states an opinion of the House and is recorded and could be worded in a way that is an enduring statement of a House position, not the opinion of the day. I believe the House can pass an ordinary motion that is meant to have a definitive statement and an enduring kind of quality.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think what I was trying to convey is that in some political systems prorogation is simply a matter of routine. It's not a matter of controversy at all; it's just simply done on an annual basis in Great Britain. Here, in Canadian Parliament, up until the 1980s, prorogation appeared roughly on an annual basis as well.