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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 319

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 28, 2024 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 319 - May/28/24
Mr. Tom Kmiec (Calgary Shepard, CPC)
  • May/28/24 7:05:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, off the top, just so that this is not a surprise, not to you as the Chair, but to the Speaker, I want him to know that I lost confidence in him long before now. I know I am supposed to split my time, but I usually look around to see if the member is in the chamber; he is behind me now. I was hoping to get the whole 20 minutes, but I will split my time with the member for Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry. He is deserving of the time. I am sure he will make fine points, too. Actually, the Speaker knows this, because I heckle him on a semi-regular basis that I have lost confidence in him. I do not believe he is doing a great job. He has given ample opportunity for members of this House to not believe that he is able to conduct himself in a way that takes the Speaker's position and rises above the fray of the House. He said on the very first day or second day that he was like a new car and that he was hoping to avoid having dents in it. At this point, this thing is now in the scrapyard. It is done. There is nothing more to do. There is no way to fix this vehicle and give it a second life. There have been three events. Other members have talked about them. The Speaker provided a provincial politician with a very partisan going-away video in Speaker's robes at a partisan convention. As the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge mentioned, the Speaker went to Washington, D.C. during a sitting week of the House in order to wax and wane about Liberal dogma. Now we have this latest issue of an email that was sent out inviting people in Hull—Aylmer, his riding, to an event where the Speaker was going to be. As other members, like my seatmate, the member for South Shore—St. Margarets said, it is impossible not to believe that the Speaker would not have known about that. All of us tell our EDAs what we want to know. I review every email a constituent gets from my office. If it goes out under my name, I see it automatically. It does not matter if it is EDA fundraisers sent by my EDA from the partisan emails we have. Nothing leaves my office without me seeing it. I look at those emails once my volunteers have set them up. I refuse to believe that the Speaker did not know. He can decline to take fault for it. If he wants to do that, that is fine. In ethics, there are two things that matter: actual conflicts of interest and the perception of a conflict of interest. The same thing applies here. The perception of partisanship should be sufficient for any Speaker to say to themselves, “I am not important”, just like I am not important as the member of Parliament for Calgary Shepard. None of us are. We are stewards of these seats on behalf of our constituents and for future generations. The Speaker is the steward of that office, which is independent. We have been blessed to have had that office for hundreds of years in this country, thanks to Speaker Lenthall, as the member for South Shore—St. Margarets reminded us. I have a print of a painting in my office so that when constituents come for a visit, I can talk about how important that was. It is a depiction of when King Charles I lost his head in the Palace of Westminster. It has a beautiful brass dot on the floor. You know about this, Madam Speaker, because you saw it with me; it was a wonderful experience to see that. It shows the exact place where King Charles I was executed, partially for invading this Parliament, trying to take it over and trying to arrest members of Parliament. The Speaker, every Speaker, needs to remember that it is not just about the pretty paintings they have in the hallway where the Speaker gets to walk around with the mace in a procession, wearing the robes, and having all of the clerks and analysts who help them do their job. Their job is literally to be a steward for the next generation, for the person who comes after them. The Speaker keeps forgetting that. It is just all about him; it has become about him. If he does not believe it is about him, in his heart of hearts, he should tell himself that his job is to protect the role and the job. The only honourable thing to do would be to resign before the vote is taken to protect that office. I have a Yiddish proverb. I wrote it down, because I always have one when I am speaking. I went looking for it. My Yiddish-speaking Jewish friends will forgive me for my pronunciation of this proverb: “Eyn alter fraynd iz beser vi naye tsvey.” That means one old friend is better than two new ones. The Speaker has chosen his old friend, the Liberal Party. I find it unusual that Liberal members of Parliament are throwing the Liberal Party of Canada under the bus. Liberals are throwing Liberals under the bus, including their whole organizational structure. Everybody in the party apparatus in the Liberal offices is in some way at fault for sending out a partisan email that the Speaker should have looked at. The staff in the Speaker's office should have realized it could not go out in his name under any circumstances. Obviously, they did not catch it. I will also say that his name was not on my ballot. I refused to put him on my ballot because this particular Speaker has been very partisan in his role. I do not fault him for it. There are many partisan members here. Partisanship is part of being a member of Parliament, and I accept that. I had the names ordered in a different way, as you know, Madam Speaker. You know exactly who was my first choice on that ballot, who was my second choice and who was my third choice. You know why as well. I have found, with Speakers in the past, and I have had a few Speakers now who have been responsible for the House, as a spectator, that Speaker Milliken was probably the best modern Speaker the House has had. I think that is a widely shared opinion. He was a Liberal member of Parliament who became the Speaker. It almost did not matter which party one was in, he was generally approved. I think even the clerks and the analysts of the different committees think so too. I have even looked at videos of his past decisions on how he behaved in the House and controlled it. I would say that in the United Kingdom the most interesting Speaker of late was Speaker Bercow, who was renowned for trying to keep order in the House with his shouting down of members and his quips. It worked for him in his situation. However, this particular Speaker has never been able to restore confidence after the errors he has made, and he does not give me more confidence that it can get better. I will also add that, when the member for Manicouagan tried to amend the motion we are considering to make it a secret ballot vote, just like when we elect a Speaker, she was shouted down by the member for New Westminster—Burnaby. He was the first member to start saying no over her as she was trying to read her motion. He did not even wait until she was done to say no, but did it while she was trying to add a very reasonable amendment. The member for New Westminster—Burnaby is the same member who, when speaking to journalists on behalf of the New Democratic Party, after the review by the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs of the issue, said, “This cannot happen moving forward. From now on, you cannot have a Speaker engage in partisan activity.” He also said, “if there was any derogation from that, in the weeks and months to come”, that his party would join in voting “non-confidence” in the Speaker. That is essentially what we are doing right now. We want the Speaker to vacate the seat. I personally believe that is the right solution here because the Speaker has chosen his old friend, specifically the Liberal Party. I do not mean the individual caucus members here, because I am sure some of them, if allowed a free vote, would also believe that he has simply lost the confidence of the House. About half of the members here do not believe he can do the job. Any Speaker in that situation, just like any CEO or chair of a board of directors, should then say that they could not continue in their role and step down. I have chaired Conservative caucus meetings. If members think we are rambunctious in public, wait until they see us in private and how difficult it is to chair a meeting of the Conservative caucus with our senators. I survived for two and a half years. My members knew that there were many times when I came very close to making a decision as to whether I could continue as the chair of my own caucus, so I set the limits of what was acceptable in our caucus meetings and what the rules were. This Speaker cannot do that because we do not have confidence in his ability to be non-partisan in the role. He allows emails to be sent out that are partisan in nature and then pretends he did not know about it. He travels overseas, goes to Washington, D.C., and waxes on about Liberal dogma. He made a video on behalf of Liberal politicians in Speaker's robes. If it was just a one-time thing, I could absolve him of that sin, but he very obviously is choosing his old friend, the Liberal Party of Canada, which is now protecting him as well, instead of choosing his new friends, those of us who are looking to him to be a neutral, non-partisan referee. In his own words, he is like an unblemished car with maybe a dent or two so far. That car is now in the wrecking yard because he has chosen his old friends. He cannot continue. I invite the Speaker to resign before the vote.
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Context: House Hansard - 319 - May/28/24
Mr. Eric Duncan
  • May/28/24 7:35:36 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would argue that I feel I have a pretty good pulse on the thoughts of people in Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry. There are about 100,000 people who want to have an election so that Canadians can decide on all the issues the NDP keeps talking about, and more importantly, the NDP constantly propping the Liberals up. The member who just spoke, the House leader for the NDP, was at the PROC meetings when it made the report on the first set of ethical violations and poor judgments of the Speaker. New Democrats said that they will make sure this never happens again, and if he does anything further, he is going to have to resign. He does it, and it does not count. It does count. The Speaker knew. Was he going to randomly just show up at this fundraiser by accident the night it happened? No. The Speaker knew he was going to be at a fundraiser for his riding. He was going to be speaking at it. It was his choice to host all this, and knowing the history only months ago, he should have had better control and processes to make sure this did not happen. It was poor judgment, and he should not have done it. The NDP has to stop propping him up and giving him free rein to keep committing these multiple ethics violations.
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