The recent federal election was held on October 21, 2019 and Parliament met on December 5. By my reckoning that is a gap of 46 days. According to a publication devoted to government transitions in Canada, the average gap has been 71 days and it was considerably higher after the Chretien election in 1997 (over 100 days) and the Martin election in 2004 (over 90 days). So, the delay in calling Parliament was not excessive based on past practice.
Parliament only sat for 7 days in December before adjourning on December 13 and not returning until January 27, 2020. While this can certainly be seen as a longer Christmas break than necessary, at that time it could have been viewed as beneficial to the Official Opposition, since the Conservatives were in the midst of a campaign to choose a new leader of their party, and were still being led by “lame duck” Andrew Scheer. Had anyone realized the health crisis that awaited us, perhaps Parliament would have returned earlier. As it was, it sat throughout February (except for one week) and then March 9 through 13 – when by unanimous agreement the House of Commons suspended regular sittings because of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Delaying the Return of Parliament
Since then, Parliament has not reconvened in its normal form. Instead, a temporary COVID-19 committee was created, consisting of all MPs, and initially meeting twice a week online and once a week in person. It then changed to meetings four days a week, with some MPs in the House and the others participating remotely. This sort of hybrid model has been adopted in a number of Western democracies, but has been strongly condemned by the federal Conservatives as nothing but a fake Parliament. Is that the case?
There are unquestionably limitations with this hybrid version. For example, it doesn’t allow opposition members to question the government, it doesn’t include the opposition days that used to allow the opposition parties to choose the topic for debate, and the time available to scrutinize government initiatives, including especially the massive spending commitments, is severely constrained. But the relentless criticism from the Conservative Party would be more persuasive if it didn’t have the lowest attendance record (47%) of all five political parties. Its performance definitely fits the “weak opposition” identified by Sir John A as one the factors putting archangels at risk.
How Others Assess the Situation
Any assessment of the situation is inevitably somewhat subjective and coloured by one’s political leanings, but two recent analyses suggest that the federal government is doing a reasonably good job under the current circumstances.
Former NDP House leader Bill Blaikie, was an MP for 29 years and specialized in parliamentary reform during his years of service. In his view, the federal MPs are doing more than most of their provincial counterparts. That observation is certain borne out by the findings of the Samara Centre, which noted in a recent report that:
- Three legislatures (PEI, Nova Scotia, and Nunavut) have not sat a single day since the pandemic was declared. Two more (Saskatchewan and Yukon) have not sat since mid-March. In contrast, the Alberta Legislature has sat semi-regularly throughout the lockdown.
- Despite the rapid emergence of virtual parliaments throughout the world, few provincial and territorial legislatures have looked to technology to keep up parliamentary business. Just three out of thirteen legislatures have held virtual committee meetings, and only Newfoundland and Labrador has authorized virtual sittings.