Statement by Bill Siksay MP on Proroguing the House of Commons

Suspending sittings of the House to try to “change the channel” and prevent Parliamentary and media scrutiny of government legislation and government decisions flies in the face of democracy.

This decision also flies in the face of the Conservatives’ own agenda. When they allow Parliament to sit, the Conservatives claim that there are urgent legislative priorities that demand immediate attention, especially in areas of the economy and criminal justice, and yet now they are solely responsible for completely short-circuiting consideration of those bills. All too often the Conservatives have called opposition members obstructionist for debating and asking questions about government bills. No opposition tactic has ever been as successful at disrupting the Conservative legislative agenda as Prime Minister Harper’s own move to kill all government legislation on the Parliamentary agenda using prorogation.

There are also significant accountability issues before Parliament-the ongoing push by the Conservatives to implement the Harmonized Sales Tax (HST), their failure to answer important questions about prisoner detention and torture in Afghanistan, a miserable pre - and post - Copenhagen record on the environment and climate change and court criticism that at least two cabinet ministers failed to meet their responsibilities with regard to the security certificate process. It is clear that Prime Minister Harper would prefer that Canadians simply forget these issues.

I and my New Democrat colleagues remain committed to doing all we can to press on these and other issues of importance to Canadians. Parliament should be meeting. Time away from Ottawa for the Olympics is not appropriate.

Please also see the following statement by Libby Davies, MP. Libby is the Federal NDP House Leader.

Bill Siksay MP
Burnaby-Douglas