A Prorogation Primer: Understanding What You Are Protesting and That “Prime Minister” and “Prorogation” Are Not the Same
A prorogation rally on Parliament Hill. Photo Credit: Sean Kilpatrick, CP
In all the excitement about prorogation it has become fairly obvious that the vast majority of the Canadian public—present company included—don’t know much about what it actually is. Normally, I use this space to share my opinion, but this time I will preface it with something a little less subjective. Today I would like to present a brief prorogation primer, with a few personal opinions tossed in for good measure.
The fine folks at the Table Research Branch of the House of Commons maintain the House of Commons Compendium, an excellent source of information on how the House and its committees work. If you visit their web page discussing the Parliamentary Cycle, you will find this simple introduction:
“A Parliament is summoned following a general election and continues to exist until it is dissolved (ended) by a proclamation of the Governor General at the request of the Prime Minister. This is followed by another general election. The Constitution sets the maximum lifespan of a Parliament at five years; however, recent changes to the Canada Elections Act provide for fixed date elections every four years.
Each Parliament is made up of one or more sessions, each consisting of a number of separate sittings (meetings), separated by periods of adjournment. Each session, except the final one, ends when Parliament is prorogued by the Governor General. The final session ends with the dissolution of Parliament and the calling of a general election.”
So you see, dear readers, prorogation is not the rare beast that some people believe it to be. It is constitutionally valid and is not morally dubious in and of itself. In fact, Parliament has been prorogued over 100 times. Still though, we are unfamiliar with it and because of that, it makes us a bit edgy. In a perfect world, all Canadians would take a mandatory high school civics class – anything the school system ever taught me about our government is long gone. Yes, the topic can be dry, but so is algebra and they made us learn that too.
All prorogation means is that the government has ended a session of Parliament. A session does not have a fixed length – it is over when the government says it is over. It can be proclaimed when the House is still in session or while it is adjourned (i.e. between sittings), and its end date can be changed (even multiple times) by another proclamation. During a prorogation, the official business of the government ends but all of our federally elected officials keep their day jobs. So what exactly does prorogation mean? Other than the obvious (the House does not meet so there are no debates), prorogation has two main effects:
1) All bills that have not received Royal Assent “die”.
2) All committees must cease to sit and committee membership lapses.
The first item causes a lot of consternation. A lot of work has gone into those bills, and it seems like a waste to toss them in the garbage. People like to make long lists (it must be hard to type while you’re ringing your hands) about all the bills that are now lost and gone forever. But wait – is this really the case? According to the rules, not everything is permanently relegated to the trash heap.
Prorogation does mean that an unfinished bill is dead and must be “reintroduced as if (it) had never existed” when the next session starts. But, and this is a big but, at the start of the next session, bills cannot only be re-introduced as new – they can be reinstated. All that reinstatement requires is that the House unanimously agrees to it, or “through the adoption of a motion to that effect, after notice and debate”. So if someone is particularly hot and bothered that a bill died, and it is in the interest of everyone to resurrect it, it is entirely possible. Since the governing party has launched these bills, it seems likely they might want to resurrect them. I know how hard it can be to get politicians to play nicely in the same sandbox, but they do have the option to work together.
People commonly express concern about what happens to Private Members’ bills under prorogation. In reality, all Private Members’ Business (which includes bills and motions) is automatically reinstated when a new session begins. According to the HCPP, “…for the purposes of Private Members’ Business, prorogation has almost no practical effect”. When Parliament resumes, these bills are considered to be at the same stage as when the last session ended. If they were part way through a stage they do have to start over at the beginning of that stage, but they are not completely dead. The only case in which a Private Member’s bill dies completely is when Parliament is dissolved.
One of the reasons this particular prorogation is so hotly debated is related to the dissolution of special and legislative committees. In particular, the dissolution of the Special Committee on the Canadian Mission in Afghanistan has raised questions about the motives behind the Prime Minister’s decision to prorogue Parliament.
On one hand, prorogation appears to spare the Government from uncomfortable and potentially embarrassing questions about the treatment of Afghan detainees. It certainly does this, but it may only be delaying the inevitable. Like bills, Special committees can be revived in the session following a prorogation. It seems almost inconceivable that the Conservatives would act to permanently quash that committee. In fact, by delaying the committee it is possible that they are moving the airing of any dirty laundry even closer to election time. True, an election has not yet been called, but the odds of one happening this year are pretty good.
If the committee is not revived, the Conservatives stand to sustain even more damage from killing it than from any actual testimony. The situation is analogous to the good old-fashioned horror flicks, where it was not considered seemly to show explicit gore. The viewer’s imagination was left to fill in the bloody details without the obvious carnage so common in the genre today. The government must decide whether the truth of the situation is worse than what the other parties and the public will conjure with their own imaginations.
The last and probably most concerning aspect of prorogation is that all Members of Parliament are released from their Parliamentary duties. There is no debate underway in the House and we are left to wonder what it is our elected officials are doing all day. This is where I cannot help but let my biased opinions creep in.
The Conservatives claim they are working to manage the economy and prepare a budget, and that they are not hiding from the Afghan inquiry. They have certainly taken a hit in the polls, so I hope whatever they are doing turns out to be worth the gamble. The opposition parties, meanwhile, are staging photo ops and patting themselves on the back. So far, my feeling is that the opposition (official or otherwise) is no less effective today than it normally is. People should be less upset about prorogation and more upset about the ineptitude and weakness of opposing parties. The Liberals, NDP and Bloc are all professional saber-rattlers. Like big-talking seventh graders, they swagger through the halls threatening to bring the Conservatives down, but always end up missing their 3:20 appointment out by the bike racks.
Right now, there are over 200,000 members in the Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament Facebook group. The few that I know who are members know something about politics and I respect their opinions – but I disagree with them. This group has an overwhelming pro-Liberal bias, which it can’t seem to admit to itself. It is billed as non-partisan, but spend 30 seconds in the discussion threads and you will see that it is not. Most of the people protesting prorogation are protesting Stephen Harper, not the fact that there is nothing apparently useful going on at Parliament Hill. That has been going on for several years and no one gave a crap.
Anyone who frequents this forum knows that numerous writers lament the lack of interest shown by Canadian voters. I think it is great that prorogation has suddenly inspired people to care, but a very large percentage of them could not explain their objections if they had to. All they could do is rely on the sound bites and talking points of the opposition parties, which are repeated ad nauseum by Canada’s left-leaning media. Don’t ask me to explain why The Economist suddenly got a bee in its bonnet and decided to care about Canadian politics.
I must point out that one of the godfathers of the Liberal Party, Mr. Chrétien himself, was rather fond of prorogation. He repeatedly took advantage of a weak opposition and this handy constitutional tool to escape his own problems (Problem: AdScam. Solution: Prorogation. Problem: Somalia. Solution: Prorogation.). He was also known for keeping his ministers on tight leashes and was himself no stranger to arrogance. It always strikes me as a little funny when the Liberals get all puffed up about Stephen Harper’s tactics, since all he did was rip a page from their play book. If they posture any harder, they are liable to snap in two.
Whether prorogation is a necessary procedural device or a gross abuse of power really seems to depend on who is in charge at the time it is used. Liberals get all flushed when you ask them about the times they did it – all full of hasty justifications and red-hot self defense. I am glad that people care about this issue, but I do hope that they will take the time to figure out exactly why and what it is they are protesting.
As for the Liberals, NDP, and Bloc, I guess in early March you’ll have a chance to put your money where your mouth is. Use the next month to grow a backbone, and if you think the “Cons” are wrong, that will be your chance to prove it.
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Tags: Parliament Hill, prime minister, prorogation, protest, stephen harper
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January 29th, 2010 at 7:56 am
Pardon my ignorance, why did the Conservatives prorogue? The issues mentioned in regards to Liberal abuse of the tool were part of their (well deserved) downfall. Also (and my memory isn’t perfect) probably not the reasons the Libs gave for their proroguing. Governments get changed when the ruling party blows it. So no, prorogation is not the Prime Minister, though: it was dodgy, it was done with the assumption that Canadians would not care, it choked off conversation, it was arrogant, and indefensible. If Stephen Harper had to be one action it would be premature prorogation.
Comparing Chretien’s leash on his ministers to Harper’s choke chain is your ignorance. I pardon you.
Never has Canada had a less transparent Government, and this whilst they have the minority in parliament. The sound bytes and talking points are admittedly not a substitution for real conversation, oh hey wait a second … you’re criticizing the opposition for the Conservative forte.
Look I am appalled at the populist lines politicians take as a result of the populace’s ignorance, or the ignorance that politicians perceive. The reason apathy (not ignorance) is fading on the left is that we’re actually scared, we don’t have to like the opposition parties to vote for them, we just have to recognize the terrifying fact that, as Ms. May has repeatedly pointed out (normally not a fan but this is just good trendspotting), one party experiences huge gains when the Canadian population doesn’t pay attention, I’ll give you a hint it isn’t the Greens.
Conservatives champion ignorance. This is well documented, even by Conservatives. I bring together some of the documents here: http://informedvote.ca/2010/01/18/populist-party-stephen-harpers-conservatives-criminal-justice-policy/ .
Small sidebar here, what do tories stand for anymore? All of those I talk to feel betrayed by the economic policies enacted. Small c is dead and big C is hidden, so what’s the appeal?
To finish where I began the Economist’s last incursion into Canadian politics was lauded by the Conservatives and touched on one of the issues that brought the Liberals down. Like the Canadian populace they don’t care until it gets really, really bad.
Then governments get changed.
January 29th, 2010 at 12:49 pm
Good morning, Fraser,
Thank you for taking the time to read my post and comment.
I am the first to admit that I do not completely understand the Conservatives (or any party, for that matter), nor why Mr. Harper has prorogued Parliament. I suspect the truth lies somewhere in between what he says and what the Liberals say.
Here is my point, in a nutshell. People are very upset about prorogation, and that is justifiable, but they are missing the much larger point. Why does the Harper government feel free to use tools such as prorogation? Why did the Chretien Liberals use it? They both used it because the opposition is (was) weak and they know they can get away with it. What people need to be upset about is not prorogation per se, but the fact that the force that is supposed to balance the governing party is so weak. The Conservatives have a minority and they are still walking all over the opposition. No one is keeping them in check, and THAT is why Canadians should care. I get very upset with the Liberal Party because they are, at the moment, the only realistic challengers to the Conservatives, but they cannot put their internal issues aside for the good of the country. My previous post talks a lot about my feelings on the current parties. There should be more to being the Official Opposition than just plotting a return to power. Present me with a viable alternative to the Conservatives and I’ll vote for it, but so far there isn’t one in sight.
Liberals are full of talk about holding the Conservatives to account, but have been low on action. Harper thumbs his nose at them (rightly or wrongly) because he can. When the balance of power is reversed, the Liberals have shown themselves to be absolutely the same. I wish I had a nickel for every time I wanted to smack a smug grin off the face of Jean Chretien. You cannot tell me that by the end of 12 years in power the Liberals did not ooze arrogance from every pore – they seemed to assume they were the default ruling party. And, as you said, this is why they got voted out.
In regards to leashes vs. choke chains, no need for name calling there. Your post would have more force if you refrained from speculating on my level of ignorance. Democracy took a back seat to party discipline a LONG time ago and the Conservatives are not the only guilty party. Saying “yeah, well, we’re bad, but you’re worse” is a flimsy argument. It is inappropriate (and a disservice to the electorate) for any party to completely muzzle its MP’s. I did NOT say that I agree with what Harper does, which is perhaps where your mistake is and why you felt the need to a bit of nastiness. What I said was that the Liberals do the same thing, so they cannot object to it on principle. What level of muzzling would you say is acceptable – 10%, 50%, 100%? How will you measure it?
Jean Chretien did not earn the nickname “The Friendly Dictator” by encouraging free speech among his MP’s. By contrast, Paul Martin, who arguably could have been a very good Prime Minister, did not have enough control over his MP’s and it hurt him/them in the end. There is a reason that Mr. Donolo has made significant changes in Mr. Ignatieff’s office culture. There is a need for someone to be the boss, but there doesn’t need to be a dictator. Politicians are pack animals, and both Chretien and Harper are clearly Alphas. If Mr. Ignatieff wants to unseat the Conservatives, he must also prove himself an Alpha who is equal to Harper (or better, whatever). I feel for Mr. Dion. He is a very intelligent and sincere man but his own party could not even manage to put on a show of support for the leader THEY chose. It made the Liberals look a bit silly. If a party can’t even settle on a leader it likes for itself, how can it expect to be trusted to lead the country? They don’t even know their own minds, let alone those of the electorate.
In closing, what does any party stand for anymore? I have voted NDP, Conservative, and Liberal in the past; I’m not tethered to any one party. If we had an election tomorrow I wouldn’t be able to vote (comfortably) for any of them (again, see my last post). I am a fiscal conservative, in favour of gay marriage, am pro-choice, and think the environment is important but not to the point that we should sacrifice the entire economy. I am also sorry to see that Canada has been reduced to a bit player on the world scene. So, who am I supposed to vote for?
I disagree with a great many things the Conservatives have done, but the majority of the political class is cut from the same cloth! People get apathetic because they see the hypocrisy of these people every day. People see that a party maintains one position while in opposition and then completely flip-flops once they are put in power (Liberal example: “we’ll kill the GST!”. Conservative example: Income trusts). They decry the tactics of the opposing party and then happily use them themselves at the first opportunity.
Phew.
January 29th, 2010 at 6:07 pm
Firstly allow me to apologize, calling you ignnorant was indeed a cheap trick. You nailed precisely why I pulled it; I do not believe there is precedent for the level of control Harper exercises over his party. Nonetheless the namecalling was kneejerk and most certainly a mistake on my part. I will here repeat my apology for it is doubly warranted in that the exposure to such ad hominem BS is something I really dislike. Please pardon me.
You don’t have to thank me for reading your work, I like reading, I do it alot, if I do not find something to appreciate in someone’s work I don’t comment upon it or read it any further.
Democracy cannot take a backseat to discipline, democracy delivers (or is supposed to) the power to discipline into the hands of the people for a moment in return for the people delivering to the people’s selected rulers the power to discipline for as long as they legally can. The laws themselves of course are always a contentious issue.
Why does everyone dislike negative politics? Freedom from or to if you will or campaigning upon either seems like exactly what I want politicians to be campaigning upon.
Anyhow my point was: what was your point? You and I both call people apathetic, I give reasons not to be apathetic you give reasons to be apathetic. What is your intention?
To boil it down:
there is little to be positive about
there is much to be negative about
at least if people are negative they have something to be about.
Negativity is the role of the opposition. I really abhor calls for the opposition to have solid policy when in fact they have been put in the position of not enacting it. When an election is called fine (anyone remember who came out last with policy in the last election?).
January 30th, 2010 at 11:26 am
Fraser,
Thanks for the apology.
I wasn’t trying to give people reasons to be apathetic – I think they’ve already thought them up on their own. I was just speculating as to what those reasons might be (I know what mine are, but can’t speak for everyone else). As soon as I discover the cure for political apathy I’ll post it here. It is partly a chicken and egg thing. When people feel politics is relevant to them and matters in their lives they will care about politics more, but until they care about it more and involve themselves, politicians will continue to ignore them.
It does my cynical little heart good to see anyone protesting anything political, whether or not I agree with them. Too often people are just told to sit down, shut up, and take what’s coming to them. If people disagree with Harper or prorogation or anything else they should get up and protest it. Their protests have more force, however, if they understand and can articulate what they are protesting. I’ve been reading the comments of people in the Facebook anti-prorogation group, and a lot of the opinions aren’t much deeper than “Harper sucks”. That is the wrong (or at least unproductive) kind of negativity. I would rather that people say “Harper’s policy sucks, and this is why”.
If you and I just wrote back and forth saying “yeah, well, you suck”, then that would be kind of dull and not very illuminating. I don’t care if someone things a politician or his/her policy is awful, but I’d like to hear intelligent reasons for why they think that. There is negativity just for negativity’s sake, and then there is useful negativity (what I’d call informed debate).
I understand that the role of the opposition is to criticize the government, which makes them “negative”. That is how it should be. What the parties (all of them) do is conflate dislike of a particular person (usually the leader) with dislike or disagreement with policies (ad hominem BS all around). Of course it is sometimes difficult to explain to people why a policy is bad – it is much easier to attack the person representing it.
Kim Campbell said that an election was no place to discuss serious issues and she lost her head over it (even though she might be right). It is a tricky position. The Liberals took it straight in the face for Mr. Dion’s carbon tax policy, that’s for sure. Certainly it takes a lot of work to put a policy together and then it’s frustrating to not be able to enact it. The counter argument is that if a party has a firm policy all along, once they are elected everyone should understand it and it should be quick to roll out. I distrust policies that are formed only in time for elections. Typically they are vapid promises that aren’t worth the paper they’re printed on.
I haven’t had enough coffee yet and I’m running off-track, but here’s one of my main points (for today, it was maybe not as clearly articulated in the original post). Canada is best served when we have a strong opposition to balance the party in power. I only really remember back to the Mulroney years, but this is what I see. A party gets in power, overstays its welcome, gets arrogant, does something horribly unpopular (things that we still argue about years later – NAFTA, GST, income trusts, prorogation), and then gets decimated in the next election, leaving a weak opposition. Wash, rinse, repeat. There doesn’t seem to be any balance and neither party is immune to the problem.
Like him or loathe him, Stephen Harper has been running circles around the opposing parties, and they really can’t blame him for pushing his limits. In spite of the prorogation protests, the polls show that the Liberals have made gains, but they have a long way to go. I don’t want to vote “ABC” as some on Facebook suggest. We all deserve better than that. If only for themselves, Liberals should want to elected because people think they’re the better party, not just as a protest vote.
January 30th, 2010 at 5:11 pm
I don’t know where to begin with this one. It is true that proroguing parliament is “constitutionally valid.” Few have disputed this fact. That doesn’t, however, validate its use. It was not prorogation “in and of itself” that caused concern but the context that it was used in.
Now who’s criticizing? Scholars in constitutional law worldwide, particularly experts in westminster-style democracy; Tom Flanagan, Stephen Harper’s very own academic thinktank from U of Calgary; conservative international journalism, like The Economist. There goes the “we are unfamiliar with it and because of that, it makes us a bit edgy.” Yes, the scholarly class opposes it along with the unwashed plebs. Go run your pristine facts by Flanagan and see what he tells you.
(also posted on reddit)
The crux of your argument is here:
“So you see, dear readers, prorogation is not the rare beast that some people believe it to be. It is constitutionally valid and is not morally dubious in and of itself. In fact, Parliament has been prorogued over 100 times.” (forgive my colon w/ quotation marks. it’s to avoid confusion for the “dear readers”)
Your whole article redundantly repeats over and over and over the fact that it’s legal. No shit. It’s the context, which you COMPLETELY ignore. And yes, the Liberals have used it for dubious purposes, but none as flagrant as trying to prorogue because you’re gonna lose a confidence vote on a budget (last year) and to avoid complicity in torture-as-policy (now)!!!!!!
So yeah, a Civics 101 textbook outlines what prorogation is and that it’s legal. Sure, no argument there.
Shutting down parliament every time your government takes a bit of heat or is about to lose a confidence vote – CONSTITUTIONALLY PROBLEMATIC. Indulge yourself in some shades of gray.
EDIT: I might add, the reason it would be problematic is that in Canada we go by supremacy of Parliament (majority of Members of Parliament in the house of COMMONS – representing common people, the essence of democracy; the senate is parliament as well but their mandate is much weaker), NOT supremacy of the Prime Minister’s Office. The role of prime minister isn’t even in the constitution; it’s a position defined by convention. If you’re going to get all literalist on the constitution then explain why we should roll over for a PM and shouldn’t get pissy because our Parliament is being shut down without its (our/citizens of canada as represented by MPs/aka democracy as we have it) consent.
January 31st, 2010 at 9:50 pm
Jordan,
Thanks for the comment.
Some points of rebuttal:
1) Not everyone does understand that prorogation is a valid tool. Otherwise, they would find words other than “dictatorial” and “undemocratic” do describe it. I doubt most people can explain it (or the current context, beyond what is reported in the news), so if you know so much about it you could have skipped the painfully repetitive bits. This blog is meant as a forum for people of different views and backgrounds to contribute “free to speak without fear”. Not everyone here will support the same view points.
2) I don’t really care about the context and this is why: The context in which the Conservatives use it is either no less or marginally less flimsy than the pretext used by the Liberals – that is a huge part of my point. What’s good for the goose is good for the gander. Do you remember the Somalia scandal and AdScam? Both were rather dubious instances of using prorogation to save one’s own skin, and NOT done by the Conservatives. So I agree totally with your point that “shutting down parliament every time your government takes a bit of heat…” is problematic. The problem is that a lot of the people who are going all all-caps and exclamation points about it now don’t seem to have any issues when the Liberals do the same thing.
3) The phrase “redundantly repeating over and over” is (really) redundant. I find exclamation points and all caps annoying too, so I guess we’re even.
4) The “majority” Members of Parliament have had multiple opportunities to topple the Conservatives and have not had the guts to do so. If they believe so strongly in democracy, why did they not eject Mr. Harper in the fall? Why did their coalition fall apart as soon as Mr. Ignatieff ascended to power? Seems like it was because they value their own political careers more than they value “democracy”.
5) Get pissy all you want. While your at it, get pissy about what you should really be pissy about – that Canada has had a series of pathetically weak opposition parties who were unable to tackle the arrogance and ego of an out of control Prime Minister (from any party).
It is great that Canadians are protesting and I would never discourage them from doing so. My point is that a lot of them have missed the protest boat. They protest without really knowing why or what they are shouting about. I don’t care if they all hate Stephen Harper, but I’ll repeat what I said in another response. It is far more useful to say “Harper’s policies suck and here is why” than to just say “Harper sucks”, and it is better if they share their opinions on a regular basis rather than storing up and boiling over (consistent political participation rather than apathy broken by fury).
Last I checked everyone in Canada was still represented by an MP. They are bright and creative people who should be busy figuring out how they are going to respond to all this in March. They will have the perfect opportunity to put their money where their mouths are and call an election if they truly believe that Harper needs to go.
February 3rd, 2010 at 3:24 pm
Good post. I was shocked and laughing out loud when I found that the Protestors here in Edmonton stood outside the Provincial Legislature with banners and signs shouting go back to work! That, in and of itself, shows how utterly stupid and band-wagonish many of folks are. Canada Place, which houses the federal offices here in Edmonton is only a few blocks away and there was no one there. Most of these protestors are too young to remember the extent of control that Trudeau had over government and are too ignorant draw the connection between the poor drafting of our Charter, to the many constitutional problems that we have today. Most are even to young to recall that it was Liberal policy, based on the academic writings of Mr. Ignatieff and his mentor Isaiah Berlin who encouraged Canadians to go to Afghanistan. the most dangerous trend I have seen in politics in the last four years has been increasing blind support for the Liberal Party without much in the way of intellectual justification AND the absurd belief, that though this is the party that has governed the most since confederation, that the Liberals are the most progressive! I can despair at length on Harperesque thuggery in controlling his party’s voting record, but this is nothing new to the Liberals or the NDP either. Sadly much of Conservative bashing is done, not by looking at actual conservative motives or policy, but by making crude comparisons to American Republicanism (on the basis of support for the war which the liberals got us into) and then substituting this orange for that apple. The truth is that most Conservatives are really like very liberal American Democrats. The youthful bandwagon in this country, in my opinion, should be told little more than to %^&* off and read a few books, white papers, and policy statements and come back to the table when they have done so. Sadly civic literacy is not a requirement for voting.
I hope you will not find it redundant, but in light of my rather long exchange on this subject, have committed to writing a through review of proroguing, its historical use, its constitutional justification, and to what extent it can be modified and amended, and in contrast, to what extend parties are blowing smoke out of the party ass to promise the public amendments that can not be delivered or that are ultimately procedural and not really effective (and actually inflate parliamentary operating costs). The most annoying thing in all of this is that the anti-proroguing types are quick to label anyone who didn’t care or was indifferent, or who speaks out against Ignatieff’s absurd remedy as “Conservatives”. This is really funny as it, by corollary, makes them Constitutionally and politically ill-informed.
Also, on the use of the word ignorant – I see no reason to find calling one’s opponents this rude or harsh. That one is ignorant only means that one is ill-informed. If one is indeed ill-informed and offended by being called ignorant that person is narcissistic and foolish. If one is informed and called ignorant, the correct response to to reply with the reading and sources one has. That said, by default then, the person who is truly offended by being called ignorant, undoubtably is ignorant, and their offense at this correct label justifies treating them with public contempt.
Note to Jordan: Constitutional convention is actually equally binding and historically has been more difficult to reform than actual constitutional text. for more on this subject read either any work on the subject by Hogg, or any introductory Constitutional Law Textbook. The one by Rotman, Elman, & Gall is informative and widely used across Canadian Law schools. The unspoken rules of the Constitution (the conventions) are generally outside the domain of parliament to even comment on and are largely at the discretion of the courts. Any amendment to these would be challenged all the way up and the SCC justices would rule inevitably in light of the implied text of the constitution irrespective of political will.
February 5th, 2010 at 6:10 pm
I would only mention that there is a pattern that was first underlined in the 2008 prorogation: The Prime Minister’s evasion of the will of parliament and his claim that popular opinion polling trumps the will of the duly elected members of parliament. This is a clear hijacking of parliamentary supremacy, deciding to frustrate the ability of a parliament to express its will, namely that it wished to endorse a new government, in the hopes that the parliament would change its mind.
The traditional and constitutional method of frustrating the opposition’s wish to form a government is to demonstrate the confidence of the house, not to cow a Governor General who took office with a soft-on-separatism image problem by demanding she close the doors on parliament because, heaven forefend, a separatist party was prepared to support a national government with a clearly avowed federalist constitutional position.
The Prime Minister frustrates the main principles by which westminster-style representative democracy works when he decides that the parliament does not have the right to express its will until the situation becomes more advantageous to him.
We elect our members of parliament, not our Prime Minister.