Shocking Intelligence Leads to the Expulsion of a Traitorous Communist MP from the House of Commons


Introduction

Startling revelations that foreign adversaries saw Canada a weak link in the Western alliance rippled through Ottawa after secret intelligence came to light implicating a sitting member of the House of Commons as a double agent who violated the Official Secrets Act by passing on classified information to a foreign communist power. Initially, these claims caught Official Ottawa off guard. But the claims were true, and the MP implicated ultimately faced prosecution and expulsion from the House of Commons.

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Posted in Parliament, Parliamentary Privilege | Leave a comment

The Caretaker Convention Gobbles Up More Time and Space: The Case of Prince Edward Island in 2023


Since 2015 or so, a segment of Canadian academics, the Privy Council Office in Ottawa and the various Executive Council Offices of the provinces, as well as the media, have decided to propagate a new, expansive, and mostly unfounded interpretation of the Caretaker Convention which holds that incumbent governments can do virtually nothing during an election. Prince Edward Island has joined the ranks of this movement as part of Premier King’s unscheduled but not exactly early election. He advised the Lieutenant Governor to dissolve the 66th General Assembly on 6 March 2023 3 years, 11 months, and 8 days after the previous general election, instead of adhering to the fixed-date election scheduled by statute for Monday, 2 October 2023 – a date which would have forced the current assembly to last closer to four and half years instead of four.

The Government of Prince Edward Island issued a public notice the following day on 7 March 2023 in what reads like a summary from guidelines on the caretaker convention probably produced by the Executive Council Office in Charlottetown:

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Posted in Caretaker Convention & Government Formation, Constitutional Conventions | Leave a comment

Prince Edward Island Holds Third Consecutive Early Election In Defiance of Fixed-Date Election Law


Even that wry grin cannot bridge the absurd incongruence of PEI’s fixed-date elections law, scheduling elections every fourth October, with the practice whereby the last three elections in 2015, 2019, and 2023 all occurred every fourth April or May.

Dennis King, Premier of Prince Edward Island and leader of the Progressive Conservative Party, advised Lieutenant Governor Antoinette Perry to dissolve the 66th General Assembly on 6 March 2023, for an election on 3 April 2023.[1] King had hinted as early as December 2022 that he would seek an election in the spring instead of waiting under October 2023.[2] King all but confirmed this course in February 2023 when he declared before a party conference: “April is a time when we usually have elections on P.E.I.” and “The party is working hard on nominations to be ready so if and when we want to call an election, and need to have an election, we’re ready to go.”[3] This upcoming 67th general election marks the third consecutive general election in which the Premier has advised and obtained an early dissolution of a majority legislature[4] about six months before the date scheduled under the Island’s fixed-date elections law, yet King’s decision comes 3 years, 11 months, and 8 days – as near as makes no difference 4 years – after his predecessor announced the previous provincial general election in March 2019. King said on 6 March: “It’s four years; it’s time to have an election. There’s uncertainty in the future and Islanders should have a say in that.”[5]

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Posted in Fixed-Date Elections | 2 Comments

A Mature Country Does Not Demand Absolutist Party Discipline


The Dorchester Review recently published my article last month “Party Discipline and the King Doctrine”, in which I recount a brief history of party discipline in Canada over the last century, the Reform Act, and the significance of what we witnessed one year ago in January-February 2022, when Conservative MPs ousted Erin O’Toole as leader and when two backbench Liberal MPs overtly and ostentatiously criticised the Prime Minister, both his rhetoric and his policies.

The current minority 44th Parliament has continued to break barriers and pierce through long-held taboos about partydiscipline in Canadian politics.

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Posted in Political Parties | 8 Comments

A Tribute to David E. Smith


I experienced a strange and sad serendipity today.

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Posted in Reviews, Tributes and Memorials | 2 Comments