A security guard patrols Parliament Hill on Jan. 6, 2010, a week after Prime Minister shut down the House of Commons till after the Olympics.Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
For the moment, prorogation is no longer on the front pages of newspapers, which suits the Conservatives just fine. And the government will be keeping its focus on Haiti, including by way of an international conference of friends of that country in Montreal next Monday.
How well the government has been doing in changing the channel can be gauged by comparing the French version of Chantal Hébert's column ( filed yesterday) with the English version filed last week and published in today's Toronto Star. Notably, the English version does not contain the following lead:
"Over the past week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has put his propensity for control to good use in responding to the humanitarian crisis in Haiti. The results are impressive. … Even the opposition parties concede that the initial response was exemplary."
Demonstrations are being planned for the weekend and the opposition parties will be back in Ottawa next week. Even if these events don't succeed in changing the channel back to prorogation, eventually Canadians will again be asked to consider an issue that was debated in Fredericton over the weekend.
One of the participants in that debate, Peter Hogg, is one of Canada's leading constitutional experts, if not the leading authority in the field. Which is one reason he should be listened to on the question of prorogation. The other, no-less compelling reason is that Mr. Hogg was one of the authorities whom the Governor-General consulted before agreeing to prorogue Parliament in December, 2008.
In Fredericton, Mr. Hogg spoke publicly for the first time on an issue that has been very much in the news recently, as it was in December of 2008. In that case, he argues that the Governor-General had discretion, since it was known that the Conservative government faced a no-confidence vote that it would likely lose. On the other hand, he argued in Fredericton, this year the government clearly had the confidence of the House and, in such cases, the Governor-General has no choice but to accept the Prime Minister's request for prorogation.
Mr. Hogg - whom I know and for whom I have a great deal of respect - argues that Michaëlle Jean made the right decision in 2008 since the coalition soon fell apart. Which is a pretty weak argument, since it's unlikely that the coalition would have fallen apart in a month had it been given a chance to govern.
Another constitutional authority consulted by the Governor-General in 2008, political scientist Peter Russell, had this to say before Ms. Jean made the decision:
"Her duty is to protect parliamentary democracy. If the reason to prorogue is to avoid a vote of confidence, I wouldn't sign it myself. You are then plunging the country into a government that is governing without Parliament."
However, subsequent to the decision, Mr. Russell was much more equivocal than Mr. Hogg in his view of the decision:
"I don't think Mme. Jean would be one to say she's absolutely right, and I'm not one to think she's absolutely wrong. It was a very tough judgment call."
(Photo: Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail)