Fallout from the fall

The fallout from the fall parliamentary crisis will generate a quick-turnaround book of essays from constitutional experts and political scientists. The Lawyer’s Weekly reports that University of Toronto Press plans to release the collection in March. With luck, the book will put pressure on Rideau Hall to explain exactly why Governor General Michaelle Jean agreed to Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s request to prorogue Parliament, rather than face almost certain defeat in the House. As you’ll recall, Harper met with Jean for 2 ∏ hours before announce she had agreed to suspend the sitting. Today’s article from the legal newspaper quotes U of T law professor Lorne Sossin raising pressing questions about exactly why Jean decided to go along with Harper. Did she impose conditions? How is the precedent to be understood? We need to know. “If the tradition is that the Governor General doesn’t speak about such decisions,” Sossin says, “that’s a tradition we should do away with.”

The Lawyers Weekly