Procedure and House Affairs committee  I'm sure some of them are in your constituency.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  And secondly--

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Actually, I don't disagree with him. I think what I was saying in the Ottawa Citizen was misunderstood, and I wish it hadn't been edited the way it was. Committees can do whatever they want. They can basically sit in between sessions, as the Afghan committee did during the pror

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It depends what comes out of that committee. As happened with the committee I appeared before, I think there was a general agreement among the people who were there that there was evidence of a clear breach of privilege, and that carried on into the House. Nothing was actually de

Procedure and House Affairs committee  As I said, because there's no parliamentary privilege, the chances of that happening are actually almost zero. In addition, why would the Committee of the Whole sit? If, as happened with the Afghan committee, there was a specific issue that they wanted to deal with.... I was aske

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The Speaker, as we've seen on several occasions now, has a lot of powers to advise that things be carried out, and this could be one of them. Yes, you could have a formal resolution. The other thing, which came up in the previous session, is that resolutions, if they're structu

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It's essentially to stop future types of prorogation. Absolutely it wouldn't have helped in the last one, because there was no real understanding of how to deal with the situation. Maybe we should have learned after the first one, in 2008, but nothing happened after the first one

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It would be the combination of standing orders plus supporting legislation to create a binding conventional rule that would allow the Speaker to basically say to the Governor General: you have the power under your reserve powers to refuse the prorogation. There would be no need f

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes. It's impossible anyway, because essentially you would need the consent of all the provinces.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Right.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  There is academic disagreement. The actual constitution talks about the “office of the Governor General”, which would definitely require unanimity under article 41. But I think the Clerk mentioned the possibility of distinguishing the “powers” of the Governor General as opposed t

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It's my opinion that the reason why the Speaker would have that power is that, as we saw just yesterday, he is in effect the guardian, so to speak, at least in terms of principles, of the rights and privilege of you, the elected members of the House of Commons. So that core found

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Yes, yes.

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Well, no; there was the King-Byng affair, but it was a different situation.