Time to stand up for Parliament
The problem is excessive prime ministerial power – and the solution is legislative restraint on prorogation...
The age-old struggle for parliamentary rights against an arbitrary governor was settled long ago... A basic requirement for responsible government in the parliamentary system, where the executive and legislative branches are partly fused, is for the executive to be answerable for its actions to an elected legislature. But a new struggle for parliamentary rights is under way, and this time it is the prime minister who is wielding potentially autocratic powers...
The cumulative result is that the prime minister in this country now threatens to subsume the legislature. The Canadian prime minister wields more power in his or her own right, unchecked by cabinet or Parliament, than the prime ministers of the other major Westminster-style democracies...
The best defence of Parliament against subjugation to prime ministerial whim is, first and foremost, a prime minister who exercises maturity and judgment in parliamentary matters...(the Iggy line? - ed)
It is time the rules governing prorogation changed... It does not violate the principles of the constitution for the House of Commons to control its own schedule. The NDP has already indicated it will pursue legislative means to rein in the prime minister's misuse of prorogation, but MPs of all parties have a responsibility to resist submission, as Junius said, “to arbitrary measures.”
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