We’ve already highlighted the big news of Justin Trudeau’s resignation, but let’s get into the details: what does it mean, how will it unfold and what is prorogation anyway?
Part One: Prorogation
The funny-sounding term is hardly well-known by those who don’t proudly call themselves political nerds, but it’s actually an important and increasingly used tool in the parliamentary procedural tool kit.
Prorogation is basically a parliamentary reset and is akin to crashing and restarting your computer. It stops every task that is currently being undertaken – nothing gets saved – and allows for a reboot under better circumstances.
But like crashing and re-starting your computer, the problem proroguing seeks to fix isn’t guaranteed to be fixed with the reboot. And that’s why, in many ways, prorogation is more like a stall tactic than a reset – again, like crashing your computer, it creates a blissful moment of calm in the chaos where you don’t quite have to believe your computer has a virus and needs to be replaced yet.
With deep roots in the British parliamentary system, prorogation was originally a tool used by the monarchs to control parliamentary decision-making. (Proroguing Parliament was especially beloved by the Tudors.) In our history, for many years, prorogation was most often used to wrap-up a parliamentary session. It was an exclamation mark on the good work done by its members during Parliament’s sitting, creating a sense of closure for politicians and the public before starting anew. But at some point, proroguing Parliament became a little less procedural and (once more, if you consider the history of how it was used by British monarchs) a little more tactical.
Indeed, prorogation has been used throughout Canadian history to reset the parliamentary agenda when the political agenda has become threatened.
Sir John A. Macdonald was the first Canadian prime minister to use the tool, proroguing Parliament to stop its investigation into the growing Pacific Scandal (the then-Conservative government was accepting improper election donations in exchange for contracts to build a national railway).
Jean Chrétien, who served as prime minister from 1993 to 2003, also used prorogation to avoid a political problem, ending the parliamentary session before he had to table a report into the Sponsorship Scandal (the misuse of public money that was intended to lobby Quebec to remain in confederation during the 90’s constitutional crisis, but rather was used to pay Liberal-friendly consultants to cycle some of the funds back to the political party after they took a cut).
In 2008, Stephen Harper famously prorogued Parliament just 13 days after the session began. Why? The former prime minister correctly feared his minority government would lose the next confidence vote and, given that an election was just held, that the governor general would allow the opposition parties to form a coalition government, rather than send Canadians back to the polls.
How did prorogation turn out for our former fearless leaders? Well, it’s a mixed bag.
Prorogation did allow Sir John A. to hide from political questions in the House of Commons, but he couldn’t hide from media inquiries. Eventually, the Pacific Scandal forced Macdonald’s resignation, leading to an election that was won by the opposition Liberal Party (even though John A. did rise again, winning another election in 1878). We’ll score that as a loss.
After proroguing Parliament, Jean Chrétien elected to resign as leader of the Liberal Party and prime minister of Canada, allowing Paul Martin to take over. And though Martin was able to win the next election with a minority government, he lost the following one, largely due to vote fatigue with the Liberals in the wake of the Sponsorship Scandal. Maybe we’ll score this as a tie.
Stephen Harper, you ask? Well, prorogation worked out quite nicely for him – a win, if you will. The opposition plans to replace the Harper government with a coalition government fell apart fairly quickly after Harper prorogued, thanks to public anger (the Bloc Québécois was set to be part of that coalition government) and, frankly, inept organizing by the idea’s leaders. When the next election came around? Harper was able to upgrade to a majority government. And all this? Made possible thanks to the reset (and time) granted by prorogation.
Which brings us back to Justin Trudeau.
This actually isn’t the first time Trudeau has prorogued Parliament. He also did it during the pandemic, using prorogation to shut down questions into the WE Scandal (government funds given, without competition, to the WE Charity, who had close ties to the prime minister, the finance minister, and other members of the government).
In that scenario, Trudeau did benefit from the reset – the public gradually forgot about the scandal and the Liberals were able to eke out another minority government during the next election.
In this scenario? Justin Trudeau won’t survive his proroguing of Parliament – that’s not the goal. But he is hoping that by resetting the parliamentary agenda he can buy time for his party to run a “robust” leadership race and have better (if still long!) odds in the next election.
Will the gambit work? Only time will tell, but the polls suggest there isn’t much reason for Liberal optimism. The anger at Trudeau will likely linger, and that will be even more true if his successor comes from the government benches.
On the flip side, without proroguing Parliament, Justin Trudeau would have had to stay and fight the next election (seeing as all opposition parties had pledged to bring down the government this month, if it had stayed in session) – something the public didn’t want; something his party didn’t want. After all, the Liberals couldn’t have fought a leadership contest while also fighting a general election. (When has a headless chicken ever won a fight?!)
Now, yes, it’s true that the elected Liberal caucus could have selected the next leader quickly from within its own ranks, avoiding prorogation and speeding up the inevitable election. But the all-powerful party (remember your Social Studies lessons here!) doesn’t really encourage this, and they certainly don’t support it. The Liberals, to be blunt, want to give themselves the best odds to, if not win the next election, then avoid a Kim Campbell-like defeat (1993) that could wipe the party out for elections or even generations.
But is what’s best for the Liberal Party what’s best for Canada? Well, that’s a good question…for tomorrow.