TORONTO - The protests and condemnations that greeted Prime Minister Stephen Harper's decision to prorogue Parliament has Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty thinking long and hard about proroguing the provincial legislature later this month.
The unprecedented protests against an arcane parliamentary procedure have made many more Canadians aware of prorogation, said McGuinty, and not in a good way.
"One of the challenges that we have now politically is that prorogation has become a bad thing," he told reporters.
"My mother is now aware of what a prorogation is and she thinks prorogations are bad."
McGuinty's Liberal government is more than halfway through its second mandate -- with an election scheduled for October 2011 -- and it wouldn't be unusual for a premier to prorogue the legislature and return with a throne speech outlining a new government agenda.
Sources say McGuinty has been considering delaying the legislature's scheduled return on Feb. 16 by two or three weeks to give the new cabinet ministers who were sworn in Jan. 19 more time to get up to speed on their portfolios.
That way the government could return in early March with a speech from the throne, followed by the provincial budget, which McGuinty has promised will detail the Liberals' plans for eliminating a record $24.7-billion deficit.
However, the backlash faced by Harper has McGuinty taking his time to make a decision about proroguing, which he insisted is not always a bad thing for a government leader to do.
"Some are good and they serve a good public policy purpose, so we've got to keep all of that in mind as we have our deliberations," he said. "(I) haven't made a final decision on that and it's something I continue to ponder."
Thousands of people of varying political stripes protested prorogation in cities across the country on Jan. 23, calling on Harper to reopen Parliament and get back to work. Crowds in both Toronto and Ottawa were several thousand strong.
Harper announced Dec. 30 that he would shut down Parliament until March 3, a move the opposition said was made so he could avoid getting grilled in the House on issues like the handling of Afghan detainees.
Federal Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said Harper's claim that shutting down Parliament allows the prime minister to avoid instability as the minority government prepares a new economic agenda is the best joke he has heard in a while.
Ignatieff last week proposed changes to the rules on prorogation to require the prime minister give at least 10 days written notice of intention to prorogue, spell out the specific reasons for doing so and allow a full debate on the issue in the Commons.
NDP Leader Jack Layton said the New Democrats would propose a bill that would require the prime minister to seek majority approval of the Commons before proroguing at any time.
