It has not been ‘business as usual’ for Canada’s Parliament and during the COVID-19 pandemic. But that does not justify the disregard shown to Parliament by the government. MLI Senior Fellow Christian Leuprecht joined Rob Breakenridge to discuss why Canada needs a functioning Parliament, especially during a crisis.
“Parliament has the three basic functions of scrutinizing the government, of providing authorizing legislation and a representative function,” explains Leuprecht. “If Parliament is only meeting minimally, it can’t adequately perform that representative function.”
Leuprecht and Breakenridge go on to discuss the historically-low number of sitting days, why the federal government has decided to suspend Parliament while other similar governments have not, and how the federal government and opposition parties have responded to this situation.
