Procedure and House Affairs committee  Sir, it's interesting that you ask that. In my last class, yesterday, on Canadian government 101, this is exactly what we discussed. The fact of the matter is, for most people, their concern and their focus is on their immediate situation economically. Politically, I think it's fair to say that the proceedings in Parliament, as interesting as they may be to those of us in this room, are not front and centre in terms of what people are focused on, and I think that's a fair assessment.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  To be quite frank, I wasn't much of a fan, but not so much for the content, I should stress. To my mind, it was something that was very similar to the Speech from the Throne, and I would have preferred a different type of procedure and path, namely, emulating what we see in the National Assembly of Québec, whereby you would have the Governor General open the session, but have the Prime Minister read the government's agenda, which would avoid the need to repeat both.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  In my honest estimation, I would say, no, I don't believe the reset was effective in communicating the necessity. That isn't to say that it might not be there, but the communication that was put in was not convincing to me. In particular, I would say it might have been more convincing had Parliament been sitting on a regular basis throughout the summer and throughout the crisis.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  To be frank, sir, this is really your business not mine. I can point them out in the public domain, but this is a political accountability system. As I mentioned in my remarks, I don't believe we should be relying on the courts to do these types of things, precisely because, as has been noted by some other witnesses, we will arrive at different conclusions about the propriety of this action.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you to the members of the committee and the clerk for inviting me to appear before you today. We have been asked to address the government prorogation this past fall. To do so, I will first explain what purposes prorogation serves. I will then note how prorogation can be abused, before outlining criteria that I believe are useful for judging the acceptability of particular prorogations.