Introduction

• Author: Rob Walsh
• Pages: 1-5

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cHaPter one

Introduction

he House of Commons is our most important national public institution. However, many Canadians may not fully understand how the House is constituted, how it works, or why it works as it does as part of our parliamentary system of government comprised of the monarch, the Senate, and the House of Commons.

First, it is important to remember, for constitutional purposes, that neither the Senate nor the House of Commons is part of the Government of Canada.¹ Second, there are three distinct branches to the government: he monarch, usually referred to as the Crown and represented in Canada by the Governor General, nominally heads the Government of Canada which is the Executive Branch of government. he true head of the Government, of course, is the prime minister; second, the courts, which are the Judicial Branch of government; and inally, the Legislative Branch, that is, Parliament, notably the Senate and the House of Commons. Our parliamentary system of government, such as in Britain, Australia, and elsewhere, does not have a complete separation of powers between these three branches unlike what occurs in the congressional system of government found most prominently in the United States. More about this later.

When most Canadians think of the Parliament of Canada, what comes to mind are the nineteenth-century neo-gothic buildings

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THE HOUSE OF COMMONS OF CANADA

in Ottawa comprised of the Centre Block, in which the House of Commons and the Senate are housed, with its tall clock tower, the Peace Tower, and two buildings of similar design on either side, the East Block and the West Block. Otherwise, it’s television clips from Question Period. At the time of this writing, we are in the irst session of the 44th Parliament since Confederation in 1867, elected on 20 September 2021.²
hose who visited Parliament Hill in Ottawa before the Centre Block was closed for renovations in December 2018 were probably impressed by the huge interior of the House of Commons Chamber (much larger than the British House of Commons) with its ornate Speaker’s chair, the rows of members’ desks, the public galleries, the large windows high on the west wall, the green linen ceiling, and green carpeted loor. In December 2018 the House was moved from the Centre Block to the West Block into a newly constructed chamber designed to serve as a temporary chamber while the Centre Block is renovated.³ As of 31 December 2022, the renovation project has an estimated total cost between $4.5 and $5 billion with estimated completion by 2030 or 2031 and the House returning to the Centre Block the following year.⁴

For...