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 not

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 con

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 h

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 N

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Sir, I would simply point out that a number of reforms have been proposed, some of them trying to create a wedge between the Prime Minister and the Governor General. That may be one avenue that we could pursue. Constitutionally, I suspect that would fall apart before the courts.

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

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I think you can certainly run out the clock. I would simply point out that there's an interesting facet here. If you recall, in the last Parliament efforts to shut down the justice committee around another controversy were seen by the government as a means of getting out of a pro

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would say fundamentally that this is what's of interest. Political parties have an interest, I would say, in this. I suspect it should be in the government's interests to simply allow the committees to do their work because, whatever is there, for transparency sunlight is often

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Certainly, if one were trying to identify the clearest reason for prorogation, a significant event such as a pandemic could be, and probably in this case would be, offered as the most legitimate reason.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, absolutely.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It does.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would say it was hardball, but as you'll see at the end of my remarks, I also point out that there may be a justification where the government feels that the Commons or parties in the Commons are engaged in an equal degree of hardball. You can ask, was that effort to oust the g

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, sir. Or in 2009, you mean, sir?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Prorogations as a routine procedure, you mean, in a non-controversial setting, correct?

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, I'm aware of prorogation. I would point out, though, I think an interesting facet. A number of people have raised the number of days in Canadian prorogations. We should also look to the United Kingdom, where they are oftentimes about a week long. We should do a comparative