Speaker Kathleen Casey announced today that she will reconvene the Prince Edward Island Legislative Assembly on Wednesday, November 12, 2008, at 2 p.m.
This will be the continuation of the Second Session of the Sixty-third General Assembly which opened on April 4, 2008, and adjourned to the call of the Speaker on May 22, 2008, after 28 sitting days.
The opening day of the fall sitting will follow the ordinary daily routine of House business, including question period. Business remaining on the order paper from the spring sitting, and available for debate, includes one government bill, twenty government motions and eleven motions other than government. There will be no Speech from the Throne.
The resumption of the sitting will mark the first time in the history of the Legislative Assembly of Prince Edward Island that the Members have been recalled to a date specified by a parliamentary calendar. In the spring of 2008, the Legislative Assembly unanimously adopted a recommendation from the Standing Committee on Privileges, Rules and Private Bills that there be a set parliamentary calendar, with the fall sitting starting on the first sitting day following Remembrance Day each year, and the spring sitting starting during the first week of April each year. The House also decided that 60 days’ notice of the resumption of Assembly business would be provided to all Members (previously, a minimum of 10 days’ notice was required). The parliamentary calendar is intended to better organize the time of the House and of members and add a degree of predictability to the legislative schedule.
The resumption of the sitting continues the long history of parliamentary democracy in Prince Edward Island, which began in July 1773.