Procedure and House Affairs committee  Good morning.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you very much. I'm going to read my initial comments to facilitate the translation process at this point. I will try to keep my comments brief, to the point, and touch on the three areas I was told the committee wished especially to hear about. I look forward to more detai

Procedure and House Affairs committee  No, I think I'll pass on this one. Thank you.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. I agree with everything Professor Massicotte has said, and I would just add as well that a Governor General can only refuse dissolution if she is prepared to appoint another Prime Minister in place of the one who's offered the advice of dissolution, because it's a standing c

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, I'd like to address an issue that was raised in second reading and comes up here as well, the desirability of the Prime Minister being able to draw a line and say that this is a matter of confidence. I think it's as important for the government to be able to set a matter as

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think it's really important to maintain the flexibility, and it is extremely difficult to be precise about what constitutes confidence. As an example, a motion was proposed in 2002, I believe, by Elsie Wayne that this House condemn the government for continuing to overstretch m

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, I do. I believe that bringing forward the bill and having public discussion of it does highlight for the public the desire to keep majority governments to a normal four-year span. That is certainly what we've seen out here in B.C. I think it is also important to maintain s

Bill C-20 (39th Parliament, 2nd Session) committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. First of all, I would like to thank you for inviting me. It is a pleasure and an honour to be here today. Bill C-20 represents a novel attempt at Senate reform that deserves substantial attention. Unfortunately, unlike many bills before Parliament, seri

Bill C-20 (39th Parliament, 2nd Session) committee  There are a number of quite complicated issues mixed up in your questions there. Excuse me if I just focus on a couple of them, perhaps. There's the issue of why the bill doesn't deal specifically with the Prime Minister's role and discretion in recommending nominees. I think th

Bill C-20 (39th Parliament, 2nd Session) committee  In a Senate committee, Professor Hogg and Professor Monahan have both argued that the existence of discretion for the Prime Minister and the Governor General are determinative of the constitutionality of this measure. I disagree. I believe the court will concern itself with more

Bill C-20 (39th Parliament, 2nd Session) committee  Are you asking whether the regional veto legislation would be followed?

Bill C-20 (39th Parliament, 2nd Session) committee  That veto right would only apply to the process for a formal amendment to the Constitution. I don't think in this context the Quebec government could try to exercise that veto. It could have a reference question on whether or not there was a convention that required provincial co

Bill C-20 (39th Parliament, 2nd Session) committee  They would not be able to talk about a convention per se, in the sense that the traditional view of convention is that you need some precedent as well as discussion in principle. So you need a constitutional principle that is being protected, some statement by the actors that the

Bill C-20 (39th Parliament, 2nd Session) committee  There is an example when the prime ministers of Great Britain and the dominions got together during the imperial conferences, where they came to a number of agreements about how Britain would interact with the dominions. They signed some formal agreements about how those processe

Bill C-20 (39th Parliament, 2nd Session) committee  These agreements transformed those conventions, because prior to these agreements the conventions were that the British ministers would advise the King on whom to appoint as a governor general, and they wouldn't necessarily even consult with the dominion governments. So this was