Parliamentary sittings, by the numbers

(Rhonda Hayward/Canadian Press)

Step aside from all the legitimate questions around the timing of the prime minister's decision to prorogue. For just a moment, let's leave the debate about whether this move is "routine" or "nearly despotic."

I want to leave the art of politics alone for a bit and instead dig into the math because the numbers tell an interesting story. One that is likely to be discouraging for many Canadians and sobering for the Opposition.

First, let's take a quick look at the number of sitting days for the House of Commons in each year -- a different measure than the number of sitting days per session. The average for the past decade is 111.  Last year was well above that at 130. In fact, only one year out of the past 10 has had more sitting days. In 2001 parliament stretched things out for a full four extra days.

This coming year, assuming things stick to schedule - the sort of assumption you can make in theoretical math - Parliament will sit for around 115 days.

So, fewer days, but it's not like we're only going to have 70 days or something.  If that happened, you wouldn't hear the word "despotic" being modified by the word "nearly" anymore. Critics would call this a dictatorship. Me, I would call it Australian.

Australia's House of Representative sits for around 70 days a year. Sixty per cent of the average for our House of Commons. And pretty much 50 per cent of the number of days Parliament sat last year. Australia's senate sits for closer to 60 days, and it's elected.

Or you could call it provincial. On average, Canada's provincial legislatures sit for an average of 54 days each year. Ontario is usually in the high 80's to low 90's. Which is very close to New Zealand's parliament which sat for 93 days last year.

Quebec, Alberta and British Columbia range from 60 to 80.

So, the 115 days parliament plans on sitting next year is shorter than planned, but much longer than many other comparable -- and in the Australian case highly functional and vigorous -- legislatures. (The U.K. is the exception, with an average of 150 days per year)

But what if the sittings were even fewer? At what point would the public begin to punish the government for its inattention to Parliament?

Take the case of Newfoundland and Labrador. Even the low provincial average is a paradise compared to the province that Parliament forgot. Newfoundland and Labrador's legislature sat for just 33 days last year. Anomaly? Not so much.  The average for the past decade is 42.

Now Newfoundland and Labrador is not the lowest in the country but it may be the most interesting. Certainly the Opposition may want to pay attention. In 2007, Christopher Dunn described something he called "the Williams effect" in the magazine Policy Options.

Public support for the government and Premier Danny Williams was at historic highs in 2007 while support for the system of governance - representative, responsible government - was in steep decline. One measure of this was the historically low voter turnout.

The legislature in Newfoundland and Labrador was deeply damaged by an expense scandal at that time. The sort of scandal where 57 politicians claimed $118,806 in alcohol purchases that were not part of meals.

The lesson to be drawn from this is that if the public begins turning its back on parliamentarians, then the premier or possibly the prime minister can turn his back too.

People in Newfoundland and Labrador did not punish Danny Williams for this. In 2007, the legislature sat for 34 days. The same year, Williams won the largest percentage of the popular vote since the province joined Confederation.