TORONTO – Prorogation or not, the federal Opposition said it will hold the Harper government to task, posing questions on social media to Conservative ministers in what they’re calling a virtual question period.
On Monday, NDP leader Tom Mulcair and House Leader Nathan Cullen posed the challenge to Harper’s Conservatives, announcing that starting today at 2:15pm ET – the time question period would normally be held in the House – they would hold a virtual question period on Twitter.
“The fact of the matter is Stephen Harper is showing his disdain for Parliament by continuing his record of proroguing this institution,” said Mulcair.
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Mulcair said there are serious issues that are “crying out for consideration by Parliament,” including the unemployment rate amongst Canada’s youth and record-levels of household debt.
“But instead we’ve got locked doors, Parliament’s not sitting and we’re not able to ask Stephen Harper to explain some of the very complicated differences between what he told us during the last sitting of Parliament and today,” said Mulcair.
Harper asked Governor General David Johnson to prorogue the fall session of Parliament last Friday. Rather than returning to the House of Commons on Monday as scheduled, MPs will return on Oct. 16 just after Thanksgiving.
NDP House Leader Nathan Cullen said that with the prorogation of the fall session, more than 1,000 questions will not be asked of the federal government, adding that the Tories shut down debate on more than 50 bills last session, “breaking a record that no government should seek to break.”
“Conservatives can run but they can’t hide. They can’t hide from accountability, they can’t hide from the questions that Canadians have for them, and they can’t hide from the questions New Democrats will be posing,” said Cullen.
The NDP kicked off virtual question period with questions about the Senate expenses scandal, picking up where heated back-and-forths between the Opposition and Tories left off last session.
So far, the NDP’s questions on Twitter have gone unanswered.
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