House of Commons.

• Date: 22 December 2020
• Author: Hawkes, Marielle

The First Session of the 43rd Parliament was prorogued on August 18, 2020, bringing an end to all proceedings before Parliament. The Second Session began on September 23, 2020. This account covers the period of July to the end of September 2020.

Legislation

Matters involving procedures for legislation related to the COVID-19 pandemic are found below in the section entitled "COVID-19".

Procedure / Privilege

On July 20, 2020, the Leader of the Official Opposition, Andrew Scheer (Regina--Qu'Appelle), rose on a question of privilege concerning remarks made by the Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau (Papineau), in Committee of the Whole on July 8, 2020. The Leader of the Official Opposition maintained that the Prime Minister had deliberately misled the House in his response to questions about an investigation by the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner into matters related to SNC Lavalin. Although the question of privilege related to one that the Leader of the Opposition had initially raised in the Committee of the Whole, he argued that, due to the exceptional circumstances, the Chair should consider the matter even in the absence of a committee report. The Speaker took it under advisement.

On July 22, 2020, the Speaker, Anthony Rota (Nipissing--Timiskaming), delivered his ruling. He noted that given the challenge with raising a question of privilege in the Committee of the Whole format, it was appropriate to bring the matter to the Speaker, but he also suggested that it would be useful for the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs to look into this issue of questions of privilege arising from committees more thoroughly.

The Speaker also laid out the criteria for determining whether a Member has deliberately misled the House: the statement must be misleading, the Member making the statement must have known it to be incorrect, and, in making the statement, the Member must have intended to mislead the House. In this case, he judged there to be a disagreement among Members as to the interpretation of the Prime Minister's remarks and that it was not obvious to the Chair that the statement was misleading. The Speaker concluded that there was no prima facie question of privilege.

On September 23, 2020, the first sitting of the new session, the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Pablo Rodriguez (Honore-Mercier), sought and received unanimous consent for the adoption of a motion organizing parliamentary proceedings until December 11, 2020, including the use of hybrid sittings (authorizing Members to participate in House proceedings either in person or by videoconference), the submission...