SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 319 - May/28/24

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

May/28/24 7:00:25 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we know why we are here today. It is because of the Conservatives' persistence in playing a shameful game of character assassination. The issue arose because something was posted on social media, a website, and we have a third party saying they are the ones who did it, apologizing to the Speaker's office for doing it and taking full responsibility. However, when I posed a question to the member's deputy leader asking why the Speaker was being blamed, her response was, in essence, that he “probably, might have, most likely approved” of it. Does the member have anything of substance to say showing that the Speaker was aware of it?

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Mr. Pat Kelly

May/28/24 7:01:24 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member might have listened to my speech because I addressed this in my speech extensively. I will say that if someone already has the same history that the current Speaker has, they do not get the benefit of the doubt at this point. At this point, it is over.

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Mr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP)

May/28/24 7:01:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have always known the member to be a fair person. I have enjoyed working with him. I know he believes in due process, and we have a situation where the Liberal Party of Canada screwed up and has apologized now for disrespecting both the Speaker and Parliament. I am concerned, and I know in his heart of hearts the member is concerned, about the ongoing attacks on the Speaker, given that we have seen as well the attacks by the conservative Saskatchewan Party in the Saskatchewan legislature, in going after an independent Speaker. We have seen violence, intimidation, and verbal and physical aggressive intimidation of the Speaker of the Saskatchewan legislature by the House leader, Jeremy Harrison, a former colleague of his and former MP from the Conservative Party. Will the member condemn unequivocally those actions in the Saskatchewan legislature, directed at the Speaker?

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Mr. Pat Kelly

May/28/24 7:02:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am here to talk about the motion at hand. The member said, the last time we debated the partisanship of the Speaker, that if there were any further transgressions of impartiality, particularly involving Liberal and partisan action, he would vote for removal of the Speaker. Therefore, I call on him to remember his words from last December and vote accordingly.

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Mr. Kevin Waugh (Saskatoon—Grasswood, CPC)

May/28/24 7:03:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, here is the issue we are going to have in the hour. It is not a secret vote. We are going to stand up and vote yea or nay on the removal. Can members guess who is going to sit at home watching our vote? It will be the Speaker. Let us see what the Speaker does when he comes back. We all know that the NDP has supported the current Liberal government. We tried today to remove the Speaker. I suspect with the vote that we are going to be unsuccessful tonight with respect to dumping the Speaker. Therefore, what happens when we come back, when the Speaker acknowledges every one of us standing up to vote nay or yea to get rid of him over his partisan shots that he has taken the last six months?

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Mr. Pat Kelly

May/28/24 7:04:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member quite rightly points out through his question that the Speaker's position is untenable. This cannot go on and it would be best for him to resign before this vote occurs.

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Resign

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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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

May/28/24 7:15:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have said this a couple of times now. I will go back to the fact that, having been a parliamentarian and witnessed Speakers of all political stripes, what I have found in this particular incident is that the grounds to justify the motion that we have before us are greatly exaggerated. I am being very kind in my words there. I would suggest that the Conservatives would have been far better off, for the sake of all Canadians, had they actually chose an issue that Canadians are concerned about today. There are many issues that are out there. My question for the member is this: Why does he believe so passionately, virtually from the day this Speaker was elected, that he has to go? That is what we are hearing from many Conservatives on the other side of the bench.

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Mr. Tom Kmiec

May/28/24 7:16:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, let me say a few kind things about another member of Parliament, of the House, who is a former Speaker himself, the member for Nipissing—Timiskaming. He was a good Speaker. He applied the rules as best as he could and tried to control us as well as any person can control us from the chair. That member made one mistake, and he resigned honourably to protect the Speaker's job and the role that it represents. That is 600 years of history that starts from the mother Parliament and is here in our own Parliament. Now we have a Speaker who, on the second formal vote, still has not chosen to resign. I put it to— Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

May/28/24 7:16:47 p.m.
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Could I invite the hon. members on both sides to take their conversations outside the Chamber? The hon. member for Calgary Shepard has the floor.

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Mr. Tom Kmiec

May/28/24 7:16:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member for Nipissing—Timiskaming honourably stepped down to protect the speakership and the Speaker's office from being further attacked and from further losing the confidence of members of Parliament, and he made one mistake. He was a Speaker whom I voted for, because I had the confidence that he would be neutral in his role. The current Speaker does not have my confidence.

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Mr. Denis Trudel (Longueuil—Saint-Hubert, BQ)

May/28/24 7:17:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I spoke about that this morning. Today, we are wasting a day talking about this motion. In my opinion, the answer is clear. The Speaker should step down. What is more, for the past several months, the atmosphere in the House has been rather toxic and difficult. Anyone who watches the debates in the House can see that members on both sides of the House call each other names and that the tone has become very aggressive and acrimonious. How does my colleague think that we can renew Canadians' confidence in our democratic system with the way that members have been speaking and debating in the House in recent months?

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Mr. Tom Kmiec

May/28/24 7:18:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank the Bloc Québécois member for his good question. I am currently serving my third term in the House thanks to my constituents in Calgary Shepard, and I have to say that it is a great privilege to serve as an MP. I find that, before every election, the tone and the words that are used in the House become more intense. I think that we need an election. We need to either call an election or elect a new Speaker. That way we can reset and start fresh. Those are the only two choices: a new Speaker or an election.

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Mr. Peter Julian (New Westminster—Burnaby, NDP)

May/28/24 7:19:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the member's fluent bilingualism. I also believe, and I am a little concerned that he does not share this, that there has to be due process. We have a situation where the Liberal Party of Canada made an egregious error, disrespecting the Speaker and disrespecting the House of Commons, by posting something without the authorization or the knowledge of the Speaker, and the NDP condemned the Liberal Party of Canada for doing that and demanded an apology, which was finally issued. It seems to me that the member respects due process. He should be directing his comments to the Liberal Party of Canada, not to the Speaker, and I am concerned about, not his approach, but many of his colleagues' attacking the Speaker, when he knows that the rules of the House are such that we cannot attack the Speaker or decisions. This is something that dates back to the former Speaker, the member from Regina—Qu'Appelle, who is currently the Conservative House leader. We have also heard Conservatives attack other Speakers, like in the Saskatchewan Legislature, and the news out of Saskatchewan is appalling. Will the member condemn what happened in Saskatchewan when the conservative Saskatchewan Party directed attacks against the independent Speaker?

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Mr. Tom Kmiec

May/28/24 7:20:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, what I did not hear the member talk about is his statement. I will remind him of it. He said, leading up to the vote, “This cannot happen [again] moving forward. From now on, you cannot have the Speaker engage in partisan activity.” He said that if there were any derogation from that, in the weeks and months to come, his party would join in voting non-confidence in the Speaker. He has that opportunity now.

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Mr. Eric Duncan (Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, CPC)

May/28/24 7:21:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, if members think ethics and integrity are important, I think most Canadians would be stunned at the fact that we would have to say, “six strikes and he should be out”. We are still here, six strikes in on the Speaker of the House, over and over again, as the Liberal MPs mock and just say, “Why not ten?” They have such a low bar they have set for themselves that we are here again today. The Speaker has been in the role for eight months, and there are numerous examples, time and time again, of his being incapable of being neutral, impartial, and non-partisan. Let me talk about the six strikes from my perspective. We are aware of what happened late last year. The Speaker had the extremely poor judgment to record a video in the Speaker's office, in his Speaker's robes, talking at the Ontario Liberal Party convention, doing a video praising another Liberal. It is completely unacceptable. The second strike was when the Speaker did an interview, cited in his role as Speaker in The Globe and Mail, regarding Mr. John Fraser, to whom he paid tribute by video. He referred, in his role as Speaker, to the Ontario Liberal Party as “our party”. It is completely unacceptable and just common sense not to do that as a Speaker of the House. If that were not bad enough, right in that time frame, the Speaker decided, when the House was sitting, to take a trip to Washington, D.C. It is nearly unheard of for the Speaker of the House of Commons to leave the country when the House is sitting, let alone when under a cloud of scandal, calls for his resignation and debate about his future. It was poor judgment to leave the country, not just when the House was sitting but also when he was under a cloud of investigation, scandal, criticism, and calls for his resignation. One would think that would be enough, but it goes on. He gets to Washington, D.C., as Speaker, goes to a private retirement party for a friend instead of being in the House of Commons, and gets caught on video talking about his partisan, Young Liberals of Canada history and how great those times were back in the day, and celebrating his Liberal roots. This is literally while he is under calls for his resignation for time and time again not showing impartiality but showing bias and partisanship towards the Liberal Party. That is number three of the six strikes we are now at. Number four is the photos that came out right around the time that PROC finished its investigation, showing that the Speaker attended a Quebec Liberal Party fundraiser locally, just across the river. When one is Speaker, they should not go to partisan fundraisers for political parties of any jurisdiction. That has just been the common-sense consensus of every Speaker we have had in this country for over 150 years. That is a strike again. Now we get to where we are when the Speaker, knowing the amount of criticism that has been lobbed rightfully against him, gets caught using such partisan language on an invitation to a partisan Liberal fundraiser for himself that it would make the member for Winnipeg North blush, probably. It is not just an accident to do all of this. Here is the thing that is interesting. After all of what I have just laid out, the Speaker promised, because the NDP propped him up, that this would never happen again. He said that he would put procedures in place to make sure that it would never happen again, and that he would be be completely impartial. This was just a rough start, and he wanted a new slate to do it all over again. One would have thought that the Speaker would have gone back to his riding association as he organized fundraisers, and thought, “Maybe we should watch the way we word our invitations.” I am not one to give free political advice to anybody on the other side of the aisle, particularly when it comes to fundraising, but nobody forced the Speaker to hold the fundraiser. He had promised to have procedures in place so this would never happen again. He could have simply mailed a letter out from the president of his riding association saying, “Our Speaker is busy being the Speaker and should be non-partisan. I am John Smith, the president of the Hull—Aylmer Liberal Association. Donate $100 to help out our local candidate in the next election.” It would have been free advice that would not have gotten him in trouble. However, it was put in an event, and here we are again. That was strike number five, and I am not done yet. The sixth strike was today. I am a member of the procedure and House affairs committee. The Speaker appeared today to talk about the topic of violence and harassment prevention policies of the House, PROC, Board of Internal Economy and so forth. The member for Calgary Nose Hill had an exchange with the Speaker about his past, his judgment and his actions of being overly partisan, and that it was on the floor of the House of Commons that the Speaker wrongfully defended the Prime Minister when he was not accused of but admitted to elbowing the chest of an NDP MP. What frustrated me as I sat in the room and listened was what the Speaker said in response to the member for Calgary Nose Hill's calling him out, saying the Speaker questioned the former member's integrity and her events of the story, literally mocked her on the floor of the House of Commons minutes later and suggested she took a dive reminiscent of something in the World Cup. He was called out for it. In the committee today, and anybody can go and watch the exchange, he said, “I can tell you that I never questioned Ruth Ellen Brosseau's accounting of the situation.” He literally stood up on the floor of the House of Commons, and it was infamous because he mocked her, and the Prime Minister had to apologize. The Speaker never did. Here he was today, when he was confronted about that situation, and I have to be careful of the words I use in the House so I do not get a point of order, and what he said in his response was completely false. People can listen to what he said that day only a few years ago, and can watch the footage from the cameras in here. That is strike number six. In 150 years, this country has now had 38 speakers. The current speaker is the 38th. I am not saying they have all been completely innocent. There have been blemishes. There have been issues. However, to have a Speaker with so many accusations against him of being partisan, having poor judgment, showing bias, and of not being neutral and impartial, and to have a couple of strikes, is not good. Some people say, “Three strikes and you're out.” We are at six strikes. The Speaker has not been here for eight years; he has been here for eight months. We have had Speakers who have served for about 10 ten years. Peter Milliken was raised earlier. He did not have eight issues and ethical violations in a matter of 10 years. The current Speaker has six strikes against him, from what I have outlined here tonight, in eight months. The question needs to be, “Who is the common denominator?” Liberal MPs have gone on to be Speaker before, with success in being able to balance. When the Speaker is elected, there is a tradition that the Speaker gets dragged in by the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, dragged to the chair. That tradition is the fun part that everybody sees on TV. Nobody forced the Speaker to run in the first place. He did not ask me for my opinion, and it is probably better that he did not. I kind of wish that he had, because I would have told him that I did not think he was the best fit for the job, because whether it was in the ethics committee or public accounts over the years, time and time again, he was constantly unflinching in his defence of the Prime Minister and the Liberal Party, no matter what. It was a recipe for disaster. We need to have a Speaker in the chair who can be respected, command the respect of the House and allow us to get to business. We are here tonight not because of Conservatives. We are here because the Speaker, over and over again, has violated trust and has violated the code that for 150-plus years has not resulted in issues. The simple thing I will say again is that it is time for the Speaker to resign. Let us put a new Speaker in the chair, one who can unite the House and focus on the democratic importance we have in the chamber.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

May/28/24 7:30:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member does his best in terms of trying to talk about the great offences. One of the offences he talked about is the fundraising issue. The Conservative House leader was the Speaker, and he actually— Some hon. members: Oh, oh.

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Offences

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

May/28/24 7:31:16 p.m.
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Order. If members have something to contribute, they should wait until the appropriate time. I do not know how many times we have to repeat that in the House. Members have been here for a long time. I will ask the hon. member to start over and, hopefully, he will not be interrupted. The hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

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Secretary

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

May/28/24 7:31:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the opposition House leader was the Speaker of the House. He not only had fundraisers for himself as Speaker, but also had fundraisers for other members, at least one that we are aware of. The Conservatives do all sorts of hokey-pokey stuff on it, but the bottom line is that we have to take into consideration the twists and turns that the Conservatives consistently use to present some sort of a picture that is not accurate. Why do the Conservatives continue to try to demonstrate that the parliamentary precinct is dysfunctional, when the only thing that is dysfunctional is the Conservative Party of Canada, better known as the Reformers?

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Mr. Eric Duncan

May/28/24 7:32:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is the typical Liberal response. It is everybody else's fault but theirs. There are six strikes that I outlined in my speech: the video he made; the comment in The Globe and Mail about the Liberal Party being “our party”; his trip to Washington, D.C. and talking about his history in the Young Liberals of Canada; attending a Quebec Liberal Party fundraiser across the river when he was Speaker; the invitation that went out that was completely inappropriate and over the top; and then, the shameful comments he made today, completely distorting the reality of what he said and, again, attacking the integrity of an NDP MP. The NDP has no problem propping him up. Which six of those are wrong? None of them. They all happened, and Liberals continue to give him more chances, wrongfully. He has zero reason to give up the chair, if that is going to be the attitude of the Liberal Party. The more strikes he has, the more they seem to love him.

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