Procedure and House Affairs committee  —that came on the heels of a prorogation, so mentioning things like child care, which is linked to the pandemic, and pharmacare, which can be linked to the pandemic, should have been linked in a much more explicit fashion.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I agree that legislation would not work. I would argue that it would require something stronger than legislation. I think it is oversight. It is investigation into the actual reasons for prorogation. Then let the Canadian people decide. Ultimately, they are going to be the jurors on whether this was politically motivated or motivated by public policy.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Absolutely, and I would go back and revisit some of the testimony that had previously been done around the WE scandal with the Kielburger brothers. If you watched their interviews on the The Fifth Estate a couple of weeks ago, I think you might get very different testimony from what they delivered back in July.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would agree, and Katie Telford as well, and many of the other same witnesses you had around WE.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  There are a couple of things. One is that I'm very pleased this committee was formed to look at the August 2020 prorogation. I wish something similar had been done back in 2008 and 2010, when those occurred. I like constitutional conventions. I think the unwritten constitution is a great strength of the Canadian system.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would add a couple extra points. Back in the 1980s, the Mulroney government had a one-day prorogation. You can do something like that. You can have a one-day or a two-day prorogation. He didn't need six weeks. The timing is absolutely important. You cannot divorce Bill Morneau's resignation from his implication in WE.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  On the issue of timing I never said it had to be in March. It could have been April, May or June. I think the reason it occurred in August was that other political events like the WE scandal had emerged. It didn't need to be the first day, the second day or the first week. If it really was about COVID, if they felt they needed to do it in August they could have done it in June, in May.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. There's nothing stopping you from announcing in a press conference that you intend to prorogue two weeks hence or three weeks hence. There's nothing stopping you from doing that. In fact, there's nothing to prevent you from reversing that three weeks later, saying, “We don't need to do this now.”

Procedure and House Affairs committee  They could have simply put in a resolution to the House asking for confidence. They didn't need to prorogue. They didn't need a Speech from the Throne. The government can declare that this item is a matter of confidence and have a vote on it. Yes, there are other reasons they could have done that besides proroguing.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think something of this importance, which led to hundreds of billions of dollars in additional government spending for an unknown health pandemic that we didn't know how bad would be, would obviously justify a reset of government to prepare for something like that, just as a global financial crisis, a depression or a war would involve similar activities.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I have no doubt that COVID was part of the decision-making, but I believe it was not the primary driver, for the reasons that I explained. I think the primary driver was to delay and try to change the channel as related to the WE scandal. On a decision of this importance, there's never one single factor.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Absolutely. I did watch when the Prime Minister attended, I believe it was, the finance committee back in July over the WE scandal. I thought that was a valuable testimony. I think asking him directly about this, about his rationale, not necessarily the conversation he has with the Governor General—I think that is privileged—but what the decision-making around this was and to be able to probe some of those questions....