Peggy Revell
The Harper government’s move last week to prorogue Parliament until after the Winter Olympics is undemocratic and a tactic to avoid controversy, Thunder Bay-Rainy River MP John Rafferty charged.
“What proroguing does is it really stymies the will of the people because Parliament is the elected body,” Rafferty argued.
“The people in Canada elect the representatives to represent them and they expect to be represented.
“It’s really unfortunate that Mr. Harper feels that this is the thing he has to do right now,” Rafferty added.
Instead of returning to the House of Commons on Jan. 25, prorogation means MPs now won’t return until March 3, at which time the minority Conservative government will present a throne speech and budget.
The announcement came last week from Prime Minister Harper’s spokesman, Dimitri Soudas, who stated the decision was made to give the government a chance to speak with “constituents, stakeholders, and businesses,” about the next stage of its economic action plan.
The Conservatives even are considering making prorogation an annual occurrence.
But after proroguing Parliament a year ago to save his government, this time around Harper has chosen to prorogue for a number of reasons, Rafferty said, including to do it to avoid any more controversy for the Conservatives.
“He wants to avoid any more HST talk, he wants to avoid, in particular, the Afghan detainee abuse issue, because what happens when Parliament is prorogued is all those committees are dissolved,” Rafferty charged.
“So the committee looking into it now can’t do its work and can’t do its work on behalf of the Canadian people.
“In my view, it’s really anti-democratic, anti-democracy for him to prorogue when there’s really no real reason to do it.”
The time period between now and March also will give the prime minister the opportunity to appoint five more senators, meaning the Conservative finally will have a majority in the upper chamber.
Proroguing Parliament also means dozens of bills that had been introduced by the government now have been dissolved, including anti-crime bills, consumer safety bills, and others.
But while government bills are now dissolved due to the prorogation, Rafferty noted private member bills—including the one to scrap the long gun registry—are not.
“But because [the long gun registry bill] is in committee right now, that committee is dissolved,” Rafferty added.
“So all of the people who were planning to be there in February and March to speak before the [committee]—for or against that particular private member’s bill—they will no longer have that opportunity.
“It has passed second reading, and that still remains exactly the same,” he stressed. “But once we get back in March and committees get struck again, they’ll be starting again from square one.”
With proroguing, the federal legislation on the HST also is now dissolved, Rafferty said, and now will become part of the larger budget package that will be presented by the Conservatives once Parliament resumes.
If the HST is a part of this budget, Rafferty vowed he will vote against it.
“I suppose if there’s a bright light, if there’s a window opening when the door closes, it might be that I can continue my fight against [HST],” Rafferty said.
Rafferty had been planning to travel across the province during January to talk about the HST—and now will have another month to do so.
“We don’t want to make it a particularly bright spot in light of what he’s done,” Rafferty stressed. “But it does give more time to get the message out.
“It’s unfortunate that Mr. Harper is doing this because we’ve had some success, and I’ve had some personal success getting things done,” Rafferty noted, pointing to the billion dollars for the forestry industry to fight “black liquor” subsidies and the billion to extend EI benefits for long-tenured workers.
Proroguing Parliament has drawn the ire of opposition leaders and politicians while more than 60,000 already have joined the Facebook group, “Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament.”
Rallies have been planned for across the country.
The move follows the controversial prorogation of Parliament a year ago when Harper’s minority government was set to be defeated by the opposition through a non-confidence vote in December, 2008.
Opposition parties proposed forming a coalition government instead of sending Canadians to the polls again, but the Governor General granted the prime minister’s request to prorogue Parliament until last January.
