Modeling Journey

PM Harper may exercise his right to ask the GG to prorogue Parliament, so that he can come back in late January with his ‘second-chance’ budget, filled to the brim with lots of trinkets for voters, and with a stimulus plan that actually is a stimulus plan.

The GG will then have to decide whether to exercise the Royal prerogative (yes, it is the Monarch’s prerogative) and allow Parliament to step down a scant two weeks after it has opened, and without having done a meaningful stitch of work to deal with the impending recession, the worst, as the Prime Minister has said, in fifty years.

There is one way for the GG to deal with this which would reassure Canadians, allow her to grant the Prime Minister his wish, and ensure that there is a functioning government which is supported by Parliament in place during the next critical two months.

All the GG has to decide is that should the Prime Minister be able to demonstrate on Monday December 8 that his government is a legitimate one, making a legitimate request for prorogation, by winning a confidence vote in the House, then she will prorogue Parliament.

Having received the formal written statement by the three opposition parties, which control a majority of the seats in the House, the GG is on notice that the legitimacy of the current government is in question.

Acceding to demands by a government, whose legitimacy is in question, for the very significant act of suspending a sitting parliament, is a major step.

Asking the government to demonstrate its right to in fact govern the country during the next two months by showing that it has the confidence of the House is a sound constitutional exercise of the Monarch’s prerogative.