Various sources are reporting that Harper will seek to prorogue Parliament for two months (more than a month beyond its scheduled return date of 25 January).
Besides giving such well-known sporting chaps as the PM and Jason Kenney the chance to appear at the Vancouver Olympics, the delay will, we're told, have a couple of other incidental effects:
Dimitri Soudas, press secretary to Prime Minister Stephen Harper, would not confirm or deny the story saying only that "no decision had yet been made" with respect to proroguing parliament.
Preventing the return of Parliament until after the Olympics would effectively shut down all government committees, which would stop MPs from pursuing the Afghan detainee controversy until Parliament returned....
A Conservative source also told Sun Media proroguing Parliament was considered the best way to give the Harper government the upper hand in the Senate.
In early January there will be five vacancies in the Senate, all of which Harper could fill with Tory loyalists. Even though the new senators would give the Tories majority over the Liberals in the Senate, the Liberals retain their majority on Senate committees until the next general election or until Parliament is prorogued.
Suspending parliament would allow the Tories to reconstitute Senate committees making it much easier for them to pass legislation unchanged.
Shame about those incidental effects, eh?
Anyway, my simple-minded question concerns the CPCCA. If all the other committee hearings are suspended, will the proceedings of that curious hybrid be suspended as well? They claim to be independent of the government, independent of just about everybody (except the people who give them money, whose identities have yet to be vouchsafed to us), and yet they hold those meetings in some of the most expensive real estate in the country, and the word you'll hear most often in the audio of that first session they held in November is "parliamentarian." I mean, they definitely think that they're working as parliamentarians. And I have a powerful hunch that the keepers of the Parliament buildings are not going to let me reserve a room in the Centre Block for the next meeting of my local cat-rescue association.
As you'll see from their schedule, they were expecting to hold three extra hearings in January and February, partly so that they could call on the carpet chat with a number of university administrators and partly to hear even more from law-enforcement persons.
To the credit of the law-enforcement persons, when I listened to the first batch, I thought that, by contrast with committee members like Carolyn Bennett and Hedy Fry, Julian Fantino came off sounding like a constitutional scholar and champion of civil liberties.
So anyway, that's my simple-minded question. Who do you think we should write to? Scott Reid? Mr Silva? All the members? The Godfathers (Kenney and Cotler)?
Sweet merciful crap. Does this PM have a Minister of Arcane Loopholes?
There's another incidental effect: there's a great deal of business on the order paper that will die there. That means that a great deal of time spent by our Members of Parliament and Senators in reviewing and debating legislation both in the legislatures and in committees will be instantly turned into waste. And those folks don't exactly work cheap. It's nice to see a governing party show that kind of respect for the taxpayer's dollar, eh?
Kitty asks: "Does this PM have a Minister of Arcane Loopholes?"
I sure wish that the GG had advisers who knew about some of those arcane loopholes. Surely there are some grounds for her to stomp her vice-regal foot down and say no? Probably fewer than last year, though. Was that a lost opportunity or what?
pogge, I thought that too, that proroguing did something to all the bills underway, but in the earliest reports I saw, I couldn't find any clear information on that score. People seem to grasp that there needs to be a budget, but I'm sure I'd heard that proroguing is where some things at least go to die.
Good call, skdadl. It has happened.
I thought that too, that proroguing did something to all the bills underway
As I understand it, any government-sponsored legislation that hasn't received royal assent dies. It has to begin all over again.
It has happened.
It's not official until the GG says so. Any word from Iggy on forming a coalition?
So what can be done?
Any constitutional law wanks? I thought prorogation was supposed to be an emergency measure not something to be invoked at your convenience?
What can citizens do? Can we petition the Queen directly? The British parliament? What?
Gad. People died in countless wars for democracy, for representation, for parliaments, for 'no taxation without representation' - and now we can have a petty little man just turn it all on its head for his own political ends? Isn't this they type of stuff that happens in remote central American countries?
Apart from protesting at the Olympics - 'cause now I really have something to protest - what can we do????
It's time to march to Ottawa and personally let the government know exactly how we feel.
A march to the GG's residence first? She's an accomplice!!
He did it by phone! And the announcement came from the PMO! You guys, this is srsly not on.
No, not on the Governor General's house first. To quote myself:
"(While) I’d be impressed if the Governor General stood up to the Prime Minister... ...there is a danger, in my opinion, of twisting or playing against the constitutional limits of power, even to slap down a prime minister who is doing the same. Indeed, that’s the whole point: I’m angry because the prime minister isn’t respecting the constitutional process, and it would be hypocritical of me to bend the rules myself in order to get my way."
There is no precedent for a Governor General to defy a request by a sitting prime minister. Need I remind you that the last time a GG tried to do that (Lord Byng), the result was a landslide majority for the prime minister who made the request the GG refused.
On the other hand, the opposition defies no laws or rules by continuing to work in the face of a prorogation. We the people have open to us the means to express our displeasure at this state of affairs. And ultimately, if we want change to happen, we can’t rely on an unelected Governor General to suddenly exercise her largely ceremonial powers. We have to rely on ourselves. It’s time to take our displeasure to parliament itself and to the various constituency offices and let our representatives know personally what we think of all this.
Um, correction: not a landslide majority, but certainly an electoral victory. My bad.
The thing that galls me is that there are any number of gullible idiots out there who will see this as Big Daddy standing up against the Bad Socialists and will trumpet this as the triumph of democracy over the forces of evil! And that is those of the electorate who are even paying the slightest bit of attention - as opposed to many (possibly the majority) of the electorate who switch the TV over to Oprah when the news comes on.
Please understand. I am not calling Conservatives "stupid". I am merely echoing the following:
What is it going to take, I ask, to get rid of this malicious bunch?
PURRFECT, Kitty! Can I borrow it?! "Minister of Arcane Loopholes"! Brilliant!! LOLLL
I believe that dissolving parliament in former times led to revolution. Not Canadian style (and I'm glad of that), but surely there ought to be a ruckus about this.
I think Rick Mercer said it all: Proroguing is for children...
H/T to Greg Morrow: Jim, those planes flying over your home to CFB Trenton...