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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 217

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
June 20, 2023 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 217 - Jun/20/23
Mr. Peter Julian
  • Jun/20/23 4:30:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I was saying that it was obvious to me that she had not observed what had happened. I stand by my position on that. That was obvious from her presentation. I was not in the House when the opposition whip made her presentation, but I carefully read what she said in her speech, and it was obvious to me that she was not here to observe. Having said that, I will continue. In essence, the Chair has the duty to exercise his or her powers in order to maintain respect for Parliament: “This duty carries with it...authority extending to...the behaviour and attire of Members, the conduct of proceedings, the rules of debate and disruptions on the floor of the Chamber and in its galleries”. I will come back to that later. As we know, “Once the Speaker has ruled, the matter is no longer open to debate or discussion”. Furthermore, all of these “ways in which the Speaker may act to ensure that order and decorum are preserved” are given to the Chair by us, the members of the Parliament of Canada. Bosc and Gagnon say: The rules governing the conduct of debate empower the Speaker to call a Member to order if the Member persists in repeating an argument already made in the course of debate, or in addressing a subject which is not relevant to the question before the House. The Speaker may intervene directly to address an individual Member or the House in general, or the Speaker may respond to a point of order raised by another Member. The Speaker can call to order any Member whose conduct is disruptive to the order of the House. I will come back to this later, because it was definitely the case here. If the Speaker has found it necessary to intervene in order to call a Member to order, he or she may then choose to recognize another Member, thus declining to give the floor back to the offending Member. On occasion, a Member who is called to order by the Speaker may not immediately comply with the Speaker's instructions;— That is what happened in this case. Bosc and Gagnon go on to say: —in such a case, the Speaker has given the Member time to reflect on his or her position, declining in the meantime to “see” the Member should the latter rise to be recognized. A warning at the time the Member is called to order that the Chair may elect to do this has sometimes been sufficient to secure compliance. It is therefore very clear, when we look at the procedural bible of Bosc and Gagnon, that all these powers to preserve order in the House do indeed fall to the Chair. That is the case in the ruling that was made this morning by the chair occupant, the member for Algoma—Manitoulin—Kapuskasing. I will give three examples, and then I will get back to the facts of what happened. Since I was in the House, I saw first-hand what happened. Here is the first example. First, in 1987, Speaker Fraser would not recognize Jim Fulton, the member for Skeena and a member of our caucus, for more than three weeks because he refused to withdraw his remarks. The member was only able to be recognized after agreeing to apologize. Here is the second example. On November 27, 2002, Speaker Milliken ruled on unparliamentary language used by Jim Pankiw, the then member for Saskatoon—Humboldt. The Speaker asked the member to apologize, which was not done. The member was not recognized for the day and offered a full apology the next day, which closed the matter. I am also aware of another case, which involved an NDP member from Dartmouth. That member was not recognized for a few weeks because she had introduced someone who was in the gallery. As we know, we are not supposed to do that. It took a few weeks. In this case as well, the hon. member apologized and things went back to normal. Clearly what happened with the member of Parliament for Lethbridge was a complete refusal to heed what were clear directives, politely but firmly given, from the Chair. Looking at the blues from this morning, we can see that the Assistant Deputy Speaker repeatedly asked the member for Lethbridge to stop screaming and heckling in the House. This was done not one time, not two times and not three times, but four times. Each time the Assistant Deputy Speaker issued, very clearly, a warning that, if the member for Lethbridge continued to heckle, yell in the House and disrupt the proceedings, the member would not be recognized. As we can see from all the precedents and the clear directions from Bosc and Gagnon, that is an authority that we give to you, Madam Speaker, and to all of our terrific Speakers in the House of Commons, to maintain order and decorum. The member for Lethbridge violated that decorum repeatedly. She refused to heed very clear, politely but firmly worded warnings from the Chair, and the consequence is a consequence that has transpired in the past in the House. It is completely valid, within the rules of order and appropriate. I will say one final thing on this. I know the Assistant Deputy Speaker and the great work she does in the House of Commons. I also commend the work of our whip, the member for North Island—Powell River. If a member from the NDP had done what the member for Lethbridge did today, that member would have been called to order by our whip because our whip would not encourage this type of behaviour in the House of Commons. Therefore, I call upon the official opposition whip to take her responsibility seriously and call on the member for Lethbridge to apologize in the House for her behaviour, which was inappropriate and over the top, and for refusing to heed the repeated warnings of the Assistant Deputy Speaker, who was acting entirely appropriately.
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