Parliament prorogued (again)
Written by: Andrew Lawton
Category: News
Prorogation was something that no one had ever heard of until last December when Prime Minister Stephen Harper requested that Governor General Michaelle Jean prorogue parliament to avoid a confidence vote. Now, it’s happened again, though under less controversial circumstances. The Canadian left is putting itself in an impotent, sputtering rage calling Harper’s prorogation an “insult to democracy.” Get over yourselves! The Olympics only come every couple of years, and they come to Canada even less frequently to that. Let parliamentarians and citizens enjoy the games without having a worry about petty partisan politics for a couple of weeks.
January 4th, 2010 at 4:14 am
Partisan petty politics? You realize the government's own bills will now be scrapped and started all over again, right? I thought Conservatives believed in fiscal responsibility. We're now paying MPs to draft bills, start passing them, stop in the middle for no reason, and then start the process all over again a few months later.
We never stalled government during the World Wars. If the government can't handle its responsibilities without shutting down its own place of business, it is unfit to govern.
January 4th, 2010 at 10:13 pm
You can't be serious. It's not about the Olympics, it's about Harper and his goons not wanting to face the music over torture in Afghanistan.
January 4th, 2010 at 11:05 pm
I beg to differ Robin. The first thing to note is that the prorogation only extends the parliamentary break for about 1.5 weeks (something I learned through a political analyst I had on my radio show last week) because they were due to be off for another couple of weeks anyways, and a lot of MP's were planning on attending the Olympics when they started up in early February.
Another factor that I didn't really think of was the fact that preparation is needed for the release of the budget on March 4th. The last budget had MP's from all parties working together over December and early January 2009 and that was kicked off by a prorogation as well. Also the fact that Parliament has been prorogued 105 times (or every 1.4 years on average) doesn't make this out to be a one-off.
January 5th, 2010 at 5:55 pm
It's just tough to swallow that our parliament will only have been in session for like, less than half the past year. How can a country function if its government works so infrequently? And why do the people who are supposed to run our society seem to be working so much less than the country's citizens? If they get time off for the Olympics, should we all get time off as well? Why not? That's just the tiniest sample of the questions the issue brings up – not even adressing all that stuff above about Afghanistan, the budget, the list goes on and on…
All things considered, it's unfortunately kind of an insult to democracy. Perhaps not the prorogue itself, but the lack of open discussion of the prorogue from the people in charge. They just don't seem to be owning up to their actions or communicating effectively with the people they represent. In a proper democracy, the Liberal media wouldn't be printing the above article, because they would have a plethora of legitimate reasons not to. Unfortunately, right now, those reasons haven't been adequately expressed by anybody at all.
January 5th, 2010 at 8:02 pm
"All things considered, it's unfortunately kind of an insult to democracy. Perhaps not the prorogue itself, but the lack of open discussion of the prorogue from the people in charge."
You put it best there. I don't so much have an issue with proroguing parliament, especially when it only works out to be a 2-week extension on recess. My concern is that this may become too mainstream in Canada and be used for increasingly petty reasons.
January 7th, 2010 at 6:09 pm
Why is this a problem? Why does the government have to be in session for so long anyhow? The less time the government is in session the better. Outside of people following this issue closely has anyone noticed that the government has been in session less this year than in other years? Contrary to what some think, the government is not supposed to "run our society" – we are. I hope a precedent is being set – that government is in session less and consequently steals liberty at a slower rate.
January 21st, 2010 at 9:22 pm
No worries, Harper will keep on doing his job.
After all an Absolute Monarch doesn't require parliament.