If you walk up to parliament doors before March 3rd, you may be greeted with a “Closed, please call again” sign.
Since Steven Harper decided to prorogue government at the end of December, the federal government has essentially shut down.
Proroguing parliament is akin to shaking up an old etch a sketch. One is essentially beginning on a clean slate, and all of the crooked, misplaced, unconnected lines of your old sketch are gone. In political terms, all unpassed bills and motions that were on the agenda before the prorogation will no longer be present.
This is Harper’s second time proroguing government in the last 12 months, and it has raised much controversy throughout Canada.
“The political effect is that a lot of swing voters who wanted him to focus on public affairs go off the ranch,” says Geoffrey Hale, a political science professor at the University of Lethbridge. “It limits the degree that the electorate will trust him.”
The decision to prorogue has been seen as many as a strategic move by Harper to fill the recently emptied senate slots with senators who will be more likely to agree with his positions on the war, and other government decisions.
“The government has the opportunity to reorganize the senate, but it cannot do so in a session. It can only do so when the government is prorogued,” says Hale. “When Harper fills the slots, it will help him run the houses of the senate a little more to his liking – he tries to run a tighter ship.”
Hale states that there are arguments on both sides. Many conservatives will support the proroguing, and many Liberals will state that Harper is abusing the government. However, it seems as if the decision to prorogue has prompted more negative responses than anything else.
‘Canadians Against Proroguing Parliament’ is a Facebook page started by Albertan Christopher White. It began with a mission statement, getting “Canadians contacting their Members of Parliament and requesting that they return to Parliament Hill on January 25th when parliament was supposed to resume.” So far it has over 200 thousand members. The group’s distaste for teh prorogation of parliament culminated in a nationwide protest this past Saturday. The Facebook page quotes that approximately 25,000 Canadians attended the rallies over the weekend.
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“I think the response to the prorogation is partly to the degree that people are frustrated with their government,” concluded Hale.