Procedure and House Affairs committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. I would like to thank the members of this committee for this invitation. Bill C‑14, which amends the Constitution Act, 1867, is clever: it masks the decline in Quebec's political weight behind a freeze in the number of seats Quebec has in the House of Co

International Trade committee  Is that question for me?

International Trade committee  Okay. Thank you, Mr. Blaikie, for the question. I'll try to answer it as clearly as possible. There are no such rules. Parliament can give the executive a great deal of latitude, but it can also place limits on it. There is no rule that prevents Parliament from setting boundari

International Trade committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. I'd like to begin by thanking the members of the committee for this invitation. What I'd like to do is make a clear distinction between the two sides of my evidence. I'll make some comments as an individual and citizen who supports Bill C‑216, but I woul

Health committee  A distinction needs to be made between this power and the opportunity to exercise it. The main thrust of my comment was to congratulate the government on its decision not to have exercised it and to have demonstrated just how unproductive and inadequate it would have been to do s

Health committee  I'll be brief, so as not to exceed the allotted time. Health is first and foremost a provincial jurisdiction, but there are exceptions, and certain aspects are clearly defined areas of federal jurisdiction. However, there is the question of funding. When you have spending author

Health committee  With regard to a political crisis, I imagine you're alluding to the fact that the government is in the minority position in Parliament. At any event, I don't think that provincial MLAs naturally have better or worse solutions than federal MPs. That's really not the case. It's ju

Health committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. My name is Patrick Taillon, and I am a professor in the faculty of law at the Université Laval. I will summarize my main remarks briefly based on a very simple idea: one of the best decisions the federal government made in managing this unprecedented crisi

Procedure and House Affairs committee  It's necessary to differentiate between the content of the throne speech and the effect of the reset. The government is claiming that it has taken a new direction. Has it? I don't have an opinion one way or the other. I will say that, ultimately, I don't think that's what matter

Procedure and House Affairs committee  The smallest—but most effective—change would be to put a time limit on prorogation in an effort to eventually establish a new use, a new convention. I don't have enough time to tell you about all the small, but sophisticated, reforms that could be made to the conventions. Neverth

Procedure and House Affairs committee  What happened with the WE Charity matters. Parliament would do well to see the investigation through. Members of Parliament have the tools to initiate a new investigation, if need be. That said, I am not so sure it's necessary to redirect the committee's focus and turn a study o

Procedure and House Affairs committee  I would point to New Zealand and the United Kingdom, both of which developed cabinet manuals. The idea was not to change the conventional rules, but to at least codify them in writing, so that the public and parliamentarians could see and understand them. That approach does not

Procedure and House Affairs committee  If the committee invites the Prime Minister and he accepts the invitation, it would no doubt be a good thing. You said that the prime minister had the constitutional power to advise Her Majesty's representative, the governor general. It's not quite that simple, though, because,

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Well, one thing is certain: the duration of the prorogation counts for a lot. I am the most critical of the government on that front. Governments can decide to prorogue Parliament for a combination of reasons, ranging from political and strategic to virtuous. In this case, the si

Procedure and House Affairs committee  Certainly, but that's not entirely accurate: in a majority government, the use of prorogation is less controversial, because it does not tend to be used as a delay tactic, as may be the case in a minority government. Is Parliament seeking a confidence vote, an investigation? In