Parliamentary Procedure Goes to School
It has been almost 10 years since the National Assembly and Université Laval joined forces to set up the first university course on parliamentary procedure in a legislative assembly. The course, Law and Parliamentary Practice, was offered for the first time during the 2005 winter semester by the university’s Law Department, as part of its undergraduate program. In January 2014, the course will be welcoming its 10th cohort of students!
The Assembly’s objective of several years standing—to make people more aware of its activities and operations—provided the initial impetus for the project, but another objective was to train a pool of potential employees for the Assembly, thus ensuring future stability and a certain continuity of the Assembly’s heritage. Collaboration between the Assembly and the university—both with deep roots in Québec City—seemed as necessary as it was inevitable, and the two institutions signed a formal partnership agreement in 2005.