44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 28, 2024 10:00AM
- May/28/24 10:29:24 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am sure the longest-serving NDP House leader in history, Stanley Knowles, is rolling over in his grave at what the House leader for the NDP just said: He thinks that one of the most fundamental principles of a parliamentary democracy, the neutrality of the Speaker, is not worthy of a privilege debate, when the Deputy Speaker has actually ruled that the Speaker pursued partisan activities, breaching his neutrality. The government House leader, who has a responsibility to enforce and uphold the rules of the House, has called that ruling of the Deputy Speaker “fake”. It is reprehensible that the government House leader would question the ruling of the Deputy Speaker on this issue.
As my colleague from Manitoba said, the government House leader has a responsibility, first and foremost, to understand that the rules say a privilege motion debate is more important than any other piece of legislation in the House. I know the NDP does not understand it. I expected more from the government House leader, yet, twice this week, he has imposed closure on issues. On every single bill, every single issue, the government imposes closure. They are cutting off democracy and debate at every turn, and he has no respect for the rules of the House.
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- May/28/24 11:36:51 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member for Lethbridge made a very compelling presentation, but she missed the original sin, and that is that there is a sixth incident, which is the very first incident, the one in which the Speaker, in his robes in his office, not far from this chamber, recorded a video to be played at the Liberal convention. While that privilege motion was being debated in the House, only a few days later he attended the function in Washington to which the member referred.
How many apologies and mistakes does the member think are acceptable in partisanship of the Speaker? Is it 10, 20 or one?
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- May/28/24 12:53:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would ask the member about the member for New Westminster—Burnaby's quote after the first incident. He said to the media, after the incident with the Speaker, “This cannot happen moving forward. From now on, you cannot have the Speaker engage in partisan activity”. He also said, “if there is any derogation from that, in the weeks and months to come”, his party would be voting “non-confidence” in the Speaker.
Can the member explain why the NDP is going back on the word of its House leader?
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- May/28/24 1:15:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. That hon. member knows that this is debate and not a point of order. I would ask that those kinds of interventions stop, as the deputy government House leader does.
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- May/28/24 1:39:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in the first of six partisan incidents involving the current Speaker, coming out of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs as it was considering the question, a member of the committee said, “This cannot happen moving forward. From now on, you cannot have a Speaker engage in partisan activity.” Moreover, “if there were any derogation from that, in the weeks and months to come”, he said that his party would vote “non-confidence” in the Speaker.
Who was that member? It was the member for New Westminster—Burnaby. Was he telling the truth then or has he just become an unmitigated falsifier of veracity today?
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- May/28/24 1:52:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to ask the member something. We have heard a lot from the Liberals that this was an incident that the Speaker somehow knew nothing about, and he was just attending. It was an event and a fundraiser in the Speaker's own riding.
I do not know about other members, but when my EDA puts out a communication for an event, I look at it before it goes out. I cannot imagine the Liberals lack such diligence that they would not look at their own information. They are now blaming the party, rather than the Speaker's incompetence.
Does the member look at his own communication from his EDA before they go out? Do you actually believe the government that the member had nothing to do with the communication about a fundraiser in his own riding?
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- May/28/24 6:34:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am rising today, as are other members, to deal with a very serious motion, the privilege motion ruled on by the Deputy Speaker and brought forward by the member for Grande Prairie—Mackenzie. It is yet another incident of the Speaker pursuing partisan elements of his personal or previous life as a partisan MP while in the neutral role of the Speaker.
It is important to note and understand why it is that the Speaker is neutral and where that comes from. It is a very ancient parliamentary tradition. For those who do not know our history, Bosc and Gagnon, the great book we use, has a very instructive history of why the Speaker is neutral.
I should mention that I will be splitting my time with the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge.
The first Speakers were appointed in the 1300s in the mother of all Parliaments, and they were essentially an agent of the king or the Crown until about 100 years later. The book notes, on page 312:
The Crown’s influence over the Speaker came to an end in 1642, when King Charles I, accompanied by an armed escort, crossed the Bar of the House, sat in the Speaker’s chair and demanded the surrender of five parliamentary leaders on a charge of treason. Falling to his knees, Speaker William Lenthall replied with these now famous words which have since defined the Speaker’s role in relation to the House and the Crown:
May it please Your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see, nor tongue to speak in this place, but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here; and I humbly beg Your Majesty’s pardon that I cannot give any other answer than this to what Your Majesty is pleased to demand of me.
The historic element of that is that the Speaker was no longer the servant of the Crown. The Crown is the government. The current Speaker has operated his partisan breaches in the last six to eight months. I would say there are six, but the first breach occurred in October, shortly after he became Speaker, as we have talked about, when he filmed a video not far from here, in his office, which he used at the Ontario Liberal Party convention. In the video, he extolled the virtues of the outgoing leader, which was a total abuse of the neutrality of the Speaker.
I would add that, in Bosc and Gagnon, on page 323, it says:
When in the Chair, the Speaker embodies the power and authority of the office, strengthened by rule and precedent. He or she must at all times show, and be seen to show, the impartiality required to sustain the trust and goodwill of the House.
Not only must the Speaker live by the letter of the law, he has to be seen to be living by the letter of the law on neutrality. Doing a video in the Speaker's office, in his Speaker's robes and using House of Commons resources was a clear breach. He was found to have made that breach by the procedure and House affairs committee of the House and fined.
Yes, he profusely apologized to the House. Apparently, in the past, that would have resulted in a Speaker having resigned, but the House accepted a fine. However, two of the parties, the real official opposition, the Bloc and the Conservatives, because the NDP is in a coalition that jumps when the Liberals ask, with the seriousness of this, voted with the government to keep the Speaker in place.
The British still maintain this neutrality. The U.K. Parliament says, “The political impartiality of the Speaker is one of the office's most important features – and most emulated or aspired to outside the UK. Once elected, the Speaker severs all ties with his or her former party and is in all aspects of the job a completely non-partisan figure.” That is not the process that our Speaker has been following in the breach.
The breach we are talking about today, of course, is that we know that he put out a very partisan invitation to an event in the riding of Hull—Aylmer, which coincidentally happens to be the Speaker's own riding. The government members would have us believe that the Speaker had nothing to do with the invitation to an event in his own riding. I do not know about other members, but I always review anything my EDA sends out in my riding. I would not let them put it out. It would be irresponsible for me to let it put them out, especially to an event like that.
The Speaker, in the invitation, described a summer evening with the hon. Speaker, scheduled to be held on the evening of June 4th in the shadow of Parliament Hill at a location adjacent to the Gatineau bank on the bank of the Ottawa River, less than a kilometre from here.
The promotional material of the event used very partisan, inflammatory language concerning the Conservative Party and the leader of the official opposition. I will just read a little bit of it for members. It said, “Join us for an event in your community - you don't want to miss it! It's an opportunity to join fellow Liberals and talk about the ways we can continue to build a better future for all Canadians - because a better future starts with you.”
It goes on to say, “While [the Leader of the Opposition] and the Conservatives propose reckless policies that would risk [the] health, safety and pocketbooks [of] our Liberal team” because, of course, it is all about the pocketbooks of the Liberal team. It continues that it “is focused on making life more affordable for Canadians and moving forward with our bold plan to grow an economy”.
The very partisan nature of this is actually emphasized in a footnote in the rhetoric, which explains that “Team [Prime Minister] events are posted by local volunteer teams”. That means that the locals in his riding posted this, not the claim that the government is making, which is that he was not responsible and that somebody else was responsible. It sounds like a six-year-old saying that their brother did it, that they did not do it, that they did not steal the chocolate bar, but their brother did.
That is unacceptable. The reason this is important is because the Speaker has to protect the interest of the opposition in challenging the Crown. The Speaker is not a mouthpiece for the Crown. The Speaker is a protector of the rights of our democracy in this place, in this chamber.
It used to be that the NDP, not so long ago, agreed with that. I will quote, if one can bear with me for a minute, the member for New Westminster—Burnaby, the NDP House leader, who said, after the first incident, when it was at the procedure and House affairs committee, “This cannot happen moving forward. From now on, you cannot have the Speaker engage in partisan activity.”
He also said that if there was any derogation of that in the weeks and months to come, and we are only months from that, his party would join in voting non-confidence in the Speaker, and that is what we are doing today. We have a motion for the Speaker to vacate the chair. The NDP House leader said that this is what they would do if this happened again. It has happened again, but apparently the NDP has been whipped by the Liberal whip into keeping its coalition alive and betraying the words that it said to the public about what it would do going forward. Some might say that NDP members were Liberal lickspittles rather than members of the official opposition holding the government to account.
Going forward, we know that, in the coalition government, one cannot depend on the NDP to protect the democratic interests of the House and the privileges of individuals. We are not suggesting that what happened to King Charles I should happen to the Speaker if the Speaker had integrity the first time, the second time, the third time, the fourth time, the sixth time, now that he has breached, in six months the partisan nature of his post.
I am partisan as well, but I do not aspire to be the neutral guy or the neutral woman sitting in that chair. I do not like to be the referee. I would rather play on a team and fight the fight. Some like to do that job. The Speaker seems to want to do both, not the Speaker who is presently in the chair, but the Speaker we are debating today, along with his future, and why he has to vacate the chair. He has to make a choice. His choice has clearly been that he is using that position for partisan purposes. That has to stop.
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- May/28/24 6:45:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I know the government finds democracy a bother, and by the way, this was an opposition day, so no government business has been lost.
In response to the question, the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, who was Speaker at one time, was not promoting an event. It was another member of our caucus from Saskatchewan who posted the picture that has been talked about a few times. The former Speaker picked up another member of our caucus and drove him to an event, and a picture was taken outside of the event by that member and posted. Somehow, the Liberals are trying to compare that to the language used by the invitation sent out by the current Speaker, which was taking shots at the leader of the official opposition and the Conservative Party. I dare anyone on that side to find anything near comparable, with the previous Speaker, the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, making comments publicly against the Liberals or opposition members while he was Speaker.
I would point out to my NDP friend from earlier that she should look at the dates of the quotes she is looking at. They are from prior to when he was appointed.
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- May/28/24 6:48:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, obviously, judgment is a key part of any role in the House, and the judgment in this case, when one is Speaker, has to be to say, “No, I will not go to a partisan event; my role does not allow for that.” In fact, in the past, Speakers have left their party and sat as independent members when they became Speaker. That is a choice the current Speaker has to make in judgment, and he showed that his judgment errs on the side of partisanship, not on the side of being neutral. That is why he has to vacate the chair.
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- May/28/24 6:49:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think I should thank the member for the question, but I am not quite sure.
I was not here at the time of Sir John A.; that is a myth. However, I was here at the time of the Right Hon. Brian Mulroney during the transition from appointing Speakers to electing Speakers. Since then, I have never seen a Speaker engaged in partisan activities while Speaker and, in an overt way, criticizing members of the opposition or an opposition party while still serving in the chair. I have not seen that in 40-plus years of my very young life.
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- May/28/24 8:58:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the interesting thing about the proposed bill and the member's speech is that, in addition to the four elements of the IAA being incorporated into it, it was introduced in June of last year, and within four weeks, the Newfoundland government was issuing tenders for exploration licences. They do that every summer, and every summer they get responses. Last year, after the bill was introduced, the “no-capital bill”, as I call it, there were zero applications in Newfoundland, and those applications went to the Gulf of Mexico.
I know the member has a lot of experience with what the IAA can do to destroy energy projects out west. Does he think it is going to continue that trend that we saw last summer?
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