No, Trudeau is Not a Hypocrite For Proroguing Parliament
The recent proroguing of parliament is different from the infamous 2008 prorogue in every important respect.
By Ryan McGreal.
414 words. Approximately a 1 to 2 minute read.
Posted January 08, 2025 in Blog.
I’ve seen some takes equating the current prorogation of Canadian parliament with former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s prorogue in 2008. Here is a short article on why they’re not the same.
The Conservatives won a minority of seats in the 2008 election and Harper stood up to continue as Prime Minister. His Throne Speech announced deep spending cuts and a proposal to change the party financing system in a way that would benefit his party and harm the others.
In response, the Liberals and NDP agreed to form a coalition, supported by the Bloc Québécois, and offer to form government instead of the Conservatives.
Given that the Liberals, New Democrats and Bloc represented a clear majority of MPPs, they could fairly claim to have the confidence of the House of Commons, whereas Harper, who had only his plurality of Conservative MPs, could not.
The parties announced that they would cast a vote of non-confidence on Monday, December 8.
Even though it was only two weeks after the election and the parliamentary session had just begun, Harper went to then-Governor General Michaëlle Jean on December 4 and requested a prorogue.
The mere request was a constitutional crisis. No Governor General had ever refused a Prime Minister’s request to prorogue, but no Prime Minister had ever requested one specifically to hide from a confidence vote just two weeks after an election.
On December 4, Jean agreed to his request, despite the fact that Harper had not faced a confidence vote, and allowed a prorogue until January 26, 2009.
That granted Harper almost two months to pour money into a propaganda operation framing the coalition as somehow ‘illegitimate’.
Today’s situation is different in every important respect. First, Trudeau’s government has faced a great many confidence votes over the past three years, including as recently as this past December 9, a week before parliament went into recess.
Second, giving the governing party time to choose a new leader is absolutely a legitimate reason to prorogue. In fact it’s exactly the sort of situation that proroguing exists to handle.
It’s nonsense to claim that the 2008 prorogue and the 2025 prorogue are comparable. The former was an abuse of parliamentary authority to avoid a confidence vote the Prime Minister knew he would otherwise lose.
The latter allows the Liberals to choose a new leader so Canadians can choose a new government in the election that will certainly follow soon after the next session of parliament begins on March 24.