Joint address (Canada)

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File:American President Nixon address joint session of the Canadian Parliament in Ottawa 1972.JPG
Richard Nixon addresses a joint session of the Parliament of Canada, 1972

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

References

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External links

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