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A second opportunity was missed when the Governor General would have contacted Trudeau’s office and requested to meet with Trudeau to formally commission him to form a government and become prime minister. At this point, it became accurate to speak of Trudeau as the “prime minister-designate” because only the Governor General can designate someone to become prime Mmnister. Since the Governor General used this term at the memorial ceremony last Thursday at the National War Memorial, we can assume it is accurate.

We know certainly that Trudeau’s office must have spoken with the Governor General’s office in setting the Nov. 4 date for the swearing in of Justin Trudeau as prime minister. Yet there is no information to this or any related effect on the Governor General’s website.

Osgoode Hall Law School Dean Lorne Sossin and I have previously argued that the Governor General should be far more forthcoming in disclosing the reasons for controversial decisions like contested prorogations. The practice of secrecy surrounding communications between the prime minister and the Governor General is simply no longer justified. Even King and Byng disclosed their correspondence at the time.

Here I am arguing for something far less extreme. The prime minister and the Governor General should simply publicly recognize the formal procedures occurring behind the scenes that facilitate the healthy operation of the system of parliamentary democracy that has served Canadians so well for nearly 150 years.

Canadians are woefully under-informed about how our Constitution works. Our system of government should not be an episode of Murdoch Mysteries left to constitutional experts and pundits to decode.

Adam Dodek is a founding member of the University of Ottawa’s Public Law Group and the author ofThe Canadian Constitution(Dundurn 2013).