The prime minister's plan to cancel two week-long breaks for elected members does not justify his controversial decision to prorogue Parliament, Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff said Thursday.
Ignatieff took the opportunity Thursday to respond to Prime Minister Stephen Harper's intention to add extra working days for MPs when Parliament resumes in March. Critics say it's a move designed to regain political ground in the wake of the prorogation Harper announced at the end of December, after the prime minister took flak from opposition members and Canadians alike.
Pointing to the fact that Liberal party members are already at work despite the ongoing parliamentary shut-down, Ignatieff said it would not affect his own party's operations to be working 10 extra days in the next session.
But he reiterated the fact that "there is no good reason to shut down this Parliament."
"All his excuses for shutting down Parliament have simply disappeared and now he's in a scrambling act to catch up to the Liberal party," Ignatieff said.
CTV's Ottawa Bureau Chief, Robert Fife, said the move by Harper means MPs will work from March to June without a break.
"He's going to cancel two breaks, one in March and one in April to make up for most of the time that was taken off because of this prorogation," Fife said.
"What he's really doing is making up to Canadians who are very angry that he shut down Parliament for such a long period of time."
Week-long breaks were scheduled for the weeks of March 15 and April 12.
Because the move requires changes to the Parliamentary calendar, all parties would have to agree to the decision.
It is expected that the NDP will agree to working through the breaks, as Ignatieff said his own party is willing to do. But that doesn't mean that either party is happy about the prime minister's plan.
"The opposition are pretty mad that they're cancelling these breaks, they say the prime minister is retaliating against them because they made so much political hay over him shutting down Parliament," Fife said.
A few weeks ago thousands of people across Canada attended rallies and demonstrations expressing their anger over the decision to prorogue Parliament.
Liberal MPs are in Ottawa despite the prorogation, holding round table meetings, unofficial committee discussions and daily news conferences to show they are working through the break.
Ignatieff said his party has been communicating with a wide array of Canadians through the work they have been doing during the prorogation.
"These are groups of Canadians who have a diversity of political allegiances -- some are NDP, some are Bloc, some are Conservative, some are Liberals -- and they are coming because they want to speak to their parliamentarians and they want this place to be a centre of debate," he said.
