Last Hours

The Gentleman Usher of the Black Rod, Major Charles Rock Lamoureux, rapped three times on the door of the House of Commons. Admitted, he marched stiffly down the aisle, bowing to the Speaker as he approached the dais to announce that the Senate awaited the presence of the Commons. In the form set centuries ago by the Mother of Parliaments, the M.P.s trooped into the Senate Chamber. There, black-robed Mr. Justice Kerwin, filling the role of the vacationing Governor General, gave royal assent to 300 bills. He thereupon declared the third session of the 20th Parliament of Canada prorogued.

The 115-day session ended with only a rear guard of 58 (out of 245) M.P.s in attendance, only 28 (out of 90) Senators. One minute before the automatic adjournment time of 11 p.m., the Speaker of the House had ordered the clock stopped. For the next hour and 14 minutes the session continued, with the Commons shouting approval of one appropriation after another until the total passed an estimated $200,000,000. Prime Minister King sat drumming his desk impatiently. Finally it was over. M.P.s whooped, threw copies of Hansard in the air, like schoolboys beginning their summer vacation.

The session had produced a lot of talk, but so little legislation that the Ottawa Journal complained editorially: "Not Much to Show for Six Months' Work." Among the items put off to the next session: revision of the Income Tax Act; the federal labor code; revision of the Dominion Elections Act.

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