Joint address (Canada)
A joint address is a special procedure of the Canadian parliament in which members of the House of Commons and Senate sit jointly in the former chamber, which, for the occasion, becomes an auditorium. The Speaker of the House of Commons takes his chair as normal, with the Speaker of the Senate seated to his or her right. Members of parliament also take their usual seats, with senators and justices of the supreme court positioned on the floor of the house, in front of the clerk's table. Gallery privileges are suspended during a joint address and access to those areas is strictly limited to invited guests.
Circumstances
Such an event is used most commonly when a visiting dignitary—such as a foreign head of state or head of government—wishes to address parliament. However, on more rare occasions, the process may also be used to make a formal, binding request of the Canadian monarch; for example, this was part of the process used to amend the Constitution of Canada prior to patriation in 1982.[1] In extreme circumstances, a joint address may also be used to remove a person previously appointed by the Queen-in-Council—such as a judge or ambassador—if other avenues of doing so have failed. For example, Lester Pearson announced a joint address in 1967 to have Leo Landreville removed from the bench of the Supreme Court of Ontario due to allegations of improper stock trading. Landreville had previously refused to resign as he had not actually been convicted of a crime, but resigned voluntarily after the government declared its intention to forcibly remove him from office.[2]
Although most addresses are made to joint sessions of parliament, on 7 May 1941, Robert G. Menzies, Prime Minister of Australia, spoke only to the House of Commons. On 25 August 1943, Franklin D. Roosevelt, President of the United States, addressed senators, Members of Parliament, and the general public outside the houses of parliament.[3]
Dignitaries
The following persons have addressed a joint session of parliament:
| Date | Dignitary | Office |
|---|---|---|
| 30 December 1941 | Winston Churchill | Prime Minister of the United Kingdom |
| 3 June 1943 | Edvard Beneš | President of Czechoslovakia |
| 16 June 1943 | Soong Mei-ling[4][5] | First Lady of the Republic of China |
| 1 June 1944 | John Curtin | Prime Minister of Australia |
| 30 June 1944 | Peter Fraser | Prime Minister of New Zealand |
| 19 November 1945 | Clement Attlee | Prime Minister of the United Kingdom |
| 11 June 1947 | Harry S. Truman | President of the United States |
| 24 October 1949 | Jawaharlal Nehru | Prime Minister of India |
| 31 May 1950 | Liaquat Ali Khan | Prime Minister of Pakistan |
| 5 April 1951 | Vincent Auriol | President of France |
| 14 November 1953 | Dwight D. Eisenhower | President of the United States |
| 6 February 1956 | Anthony Eden | Prime Minister of the United Kingdom |
| 5 March 1956 | Giovanni Gronchi | President of Italy |
| 5 June 1956 | Sukarno | President of Indonesia |
| 4 March 1957 | Guy Mollet | Prime Minister of France |
| 2 June 1958 | Theodor Heuss | President of West Germany |
| 13 June 1958 | Harold Macmillan | Prime Minister of the United Kingdom |
| 9 July 1958 | Dwight D. Eisenhower | President of the United States |
| 21 July 1958 | Kwame Nkrumah | Prime Minister of Ghana |
| 17 May 1961 | John F. Kennedy | President of the United States |
| 26 May 1964 | U Thant | Secretary General of the United Nations |
| 14 April 1972 | Richard Nixon | President of the United States |
| 30 March 1973 | Luis Echeverría | President of Mexico |
| 19 June 1973 | Indira Gandhi | Prime Minister of India |
| 5 May 1980 | Masayoshi Ohira | Prime Minister of Japan |
| 26 May 1980 | José López Portillo | President of Mexico |
| 11 March 1981 | Ronald Reagan | President of the United States |
| 26 September 1983 | Margaret Thatcher | Prime Minister of the United Kingdom |
| 17 January 1984 | Zhao Ziyang | Premier of the People's Republic of China |
| 8 May 1984 | Miguel de la Madrid | President of Mexico |
| 7 March 1985 | Javier Pérez de Cuéllar | Secretary General of the United Nations |
| 13 January 1986 | Yasuhiro Nakasone | Prime Minister of Japan |
| 6 April 1987 | Ronald Reagan | President of the United States |
| 25 May 1987 | François Mitterrand | President of France |
| 10 May 1988 | Beatrix | Queen of the Netherlands |
| 16 June 1988 | Helmut Kohl | Chancellor of West Germany |
| 22 June 1988 | Margaret Thatcher | Prime Minister of the United Kingdom |
| 27 June 1989 | Chaim Herzog | President of Israel |
| 11 October 1989 | Hussein | King of Jordan |
| 18 June 1990 | Nelson Mandela | Deputy President of the African National Congress |
| 8 April 1991 | Carlos Salinas de Gortari | President of Mexico |
| 19 June 1992 | Boris Yeltsin | President of Russia |
| 23 February 1995 | Bill Clinton | President of the United States |
| 11 June 1996 | Ernesto Zedillo | President of Mexico |
| 24 September 1998 | Nelson Mandela | President of South Africa |
| 29 April 1999 | Václav Havel | President of the Czech Republic |
| 22 February 2001 | Tony Blair | Prime Minister of the United Kingdom |
| 9 March 2004 | Kofi Annan | Secretary General of the United Nations |
| 25 October 2004 | Vicente Fox | President of Mexico |
| 18 May 2006 | John Howard | Prime Minister of Australia |
| 22 September 2006 | Hamid Karzai | President of Afghanistan |
| 26 May 2008 | Viktor Yushchenko | President of Ukraine |
| 26 May 2010 | Felipe Calderón | President of Mexico |
| 22 September 2011 | David Cameron | Prime Minister of the United Kingdom |
| 27 February 2014 | Aga Khan IV | Imam of Nizari Isma'ilism |
| 17 September 2014 | Petro Poroshenko | President of Ukraine |
| 3 November 2014 | François Hollande | President of France |
| 29 June 2016 | Barack Obama | President of the United States |
See also
- Speech from the Throne
- Joint session of the United States Congress
- United States presidential visits to Canada
- List of people who have addressed both Houses of the United Kingdom Parliament
References
- ↑ Lederman, William (1983), "The Supreme Court of Canada and Basic Constitutional Amendment", in Banting, Keith G.; Simeon, Richard, And No One Cheered: Federalism, Democracy, and the Constitution Act, Toronto: Taylor & Francis, p. 177, ISBN 978-0-458-95950-1, retrieved 12 June 2010
- ↑ Kaplan, William (June 1996). Bad Judgment: The Case of Mr Justice Leo A. Landreville. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 978-0-8020-0836-7.
- ↑ Parliament of Canada. "Heads of States and of Governments who have addressed Joint Sessions of the Senate and House of Commons of Canada". Queen's Printer for Canada. Retrieved 4 May 2015.
- ↑ Parliament of Canada. "Foreign Dignitaries who have Addressed Joint Sessions of the Senate and House of Commons of Canada". Queen's Printer for Canada. Retrieved 4 May 2015.
- ↑ Parliament of Canada. "House of Commons Procedure and Practice: Sittings of the House". Queen's Printer for Canada. Retrieved 4 May 2015.