Shuttering Parliament benefits one person: Justin Trudeau

Don’t let any Toronto Star columnists fool you - prorogation would be all about letting Trudeau catch his breath while running from a tsunami of scandal.

This morning, Toronto Star columnist Susan Delacourt wrote a stilted column suggesting that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau would be doing Canadians a favour if he prorogued (suspended) Parliament.

Ms. Delacourt, well known in Ottawa insider circles for her cozy relationship with the most senior members of the Prime Minister’s Office, floated this notion as Mr. Trudeau’s governing Liberal party hit the two-week mark of obstructing a Parliamentary order to release documents related to a multi-million dollar financing scandal to the RCMP. 

That obfuscation on the part of the federal Liberals was conspicuously absent from Ms. Delacourt’s column, who opted instead to suggest that it was the pesky federal Conservatives who were “feeding cynicism” about politics as they remained resolute in not backing down on their two week pressing of the matter in the House of Commons. From there, Ms. Delacourt built to the crescendo of her thesis. Outrageous behaviour by the opposition Conservatives (read: demanding that the Liberals comply with a document production order agreed to by three opposition parties involving potentially millions of dollars of allegedly misappropriated funds) could justify a prorogation.

LOL.

This spin is a stretch, even for Ms. Delacourt. A prorogation at this juncture of Mr. Trudeau’s tenure would only have one beneficiary, and it would not be the Canadian public. Rather, it’s Mr. Trudeau. Instead of pointing the finger at opposition Conservatives, public dismay for the state of Parliament would be more accurately attributed to the Liberal government who, day in and day out, disrespect Parliamentarians with non-answers, misdirection, obfuscation, and even obscenities. Said differently, when it comes to prorogation, Mr. Trudeau is desperate to buy time away from Parliamentary scrutiny while he attempts to reverse his political fortunes, and he only has one trick left up his sleeve.

A prorogation would politically benefit Mr. Trudeau on many fronts. It would prevent Parliamentary committees from meeting and, in turn, unearthing details of the plethora of scandals the Liberals are embroiled in. And prorogation wouldn’t necessarily wipe Liberal bills off the agenda, either. Widely panned C-63, a far-reaching incursion on Canadian free speech, could still be reinstated post-prorogation with a programming motion, allowing Mr. Trudeau to shut down committees without wiping these bills off the legislative docket. And perhaps most importantly, a prorogation would deprive Parliament of opportunities to topple his Liberal government on another confidence vote.

So what’s stopping Mr. Trudeau from pulling the prorogation pin?

The most likely explanation is that his Prime Minister’s Office - plagued by departures of senior staff and buried under a mountain of explosive issues - doesn’t have a plan yet. The gossip in most Ottawa circles is that Mr. Trudeau isn’t entirely sure whether he will reoffer. So if he decides to leave, the Liberals would need a prorogation to prevent opposition parties from triggering an election in the middle of a leadership race. And given that a prorogation would likely further cement public opinion of the Liberals as a party that will do anything to cling to power, they will only get one shot at using the tool - a Parliamentary nuclear option - prior to the next election. 

But if Mr. Trudeau has decided to stay, the Prime Minister’s Office would probably want to gauge public opinion on the extent to which the public would punish the Liberals for effectively shutting down any mechanisms for public scrutiny of their government. Today, given the significant access Team Trudeau has historically granted to Ms. Delacourt, many in the Ottawa bubble were speculating that her column was designed to do exactly that—test drive Liberal spin that could be used to justify suspending Parliament while seeing what the potential blowback would be. In that, the gossip on the street today was that a prorogation could happen in the near future.

But credit where credit is due: Ms. Delacourt got one thing right in her column. A prorogation would come at a price. But like so much of the suffering his government has inflicted upon Canadians, it won’t be Mr. Trudeau who pays the cost. Canadians - who desperately need the opposition Conservatives to continue to press for solutions to crisis level issues like housing affordability and crime - will be the ones to pay if Mr. Trudeau shuts down Parliament.

The Conservative caucus (of which I am a member) has no intent of taking our foot off the accountability gas pedal, no matter how many ridiculous columns are written suggesting that it’s somehow impolitic to shine a light on the failures of this long in the tooth, inept, Liberal government.

So, Mr. Trudeau, over to you. Prorogue at your own peril.