Debates of May 28th, 2024

Request for Office of Speaker to be Vacated

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would, frankly, be embarrassed if I were the deputy House leader of the government standing up in this place, defending the indefensible. He has members of the House speaking at length about all the Speaker's transgressions as an impartial referee of the House. He cannot do the job. That is what we are talking about today. Instead, the member is deflecting and diverting from the fact that, one, he cannot get his agenda through the House because he has decided to put the Speaker in the chair, and the Speaker has decided for himself, by his actions, that we would have this day today.

[Mario Beaulieu, Bloc, La Pointe-de-l'Île, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to know what my colleague thinks about the questions from earlier to the effect that the Bloc Québécois should not criticize the Speaker because he is a Quebecker. I believe that where the person lives should not even come into play.

There was another incident with the president of the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie. Some people were saying that the Bloc Québécois was attacking him because he is a Franco-Ontarian.

I think we have to be impartial. Whether someone is from Quebec, Ontario or elsewhere, everyone is equal.

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Madam Speaker, I think the identity politics in this place is a disease, and I do not care if the Speaker is from Quebec, Ontario, Saskatchewan or any of the great provinces in this country. We are talking about his inability to be impartial in that chair. That is what we are talking about today, and we are going to judge him accordingly.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, first off, of course, we already went through the procedure and House affairs committee, and the House took a vote. Since then, there has not been anything that justifies what the Conservatives are doing today and are doing this week. The Liberal Party of Canada made, in my judgment, a despicable mistake by posting something on its website that showed disrespect to the Speaker and disrespect to the House of Commons. The Liberals should have apologized immediately. It took them a few hours, but they finally did apologize.

What we are seeing, though, is an attack against the Speaker in the same way that the Conservative Saskatchewan Party is attacking the independent Speaker of the Saskatchewan legislature as well. We have seen verbal intimidation. We have seen threats, and we have seen the use of a firearm. Not a single Conservative has condemned that. I would ask my colleague to condemn what has happened to the Speaker in the Saskatchewan legislature. Will she do it?

[Melissa Lantsman, Conservative, Thornhill, ON]

Madam Speaker, I can understand why it is very difficult to keep track of all the scandals of the Speaker. I can completely understand that because every time I see him in the news, it is a different scandal. However, the one we are talking about today is the partisan posting of a fundraising event that the Speaker is part of and that he probably, might have, most likely approved, in terms of time. It is that member over there, who is screaming over me, who has become obsessed with the Saskatchewan legislature. I would say to that member to go and run in Saskatchewan if people are not going to elect him in his seat in B.C.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Calgary Nose Hill. I am quite looking forward to her intervention on this matter.

It is actually quite incredible to me that we are in this place at this point. I have been listening to the debate today. I have been listening to the government side. I have been listening to what I now call the moderate wing of the Liberal government, which is the NDP, argue that this is somehow a character assassination. In fact, a member of the opposition, who functions in his role as an opposition member, legitimately fulfilled his constitutional obligation by rising in this place and presenting a question of privilege. This was in relation to an advertisement of a partisan event that the Speaker of the House was going to be participating in. The ad was itself a character assassination of the Leader of the Opposition.

When a member brings a question of privilege to the House, it means they feel that their privileges, or the privileges of other members, have been violated. At that point, given all the interventions that occur, the Speaker makes a ruling. In this case, the Speaker was not able to make a ruling, because he was directly implicated in this question of privilege; therefore the Deputy Speaker made a ruling. In it, he said there may have been a violation of members' privileges. That is it. The independence of the speakership was actually effective at that point in determining that a proper question of privilege had, in fact, happened.

As is the right of all members, the member for Grande Prairie—Mackenzie moved a motion based on the Deputy Speaker's ruling, which is what we are now debating. It is not as though any opposition party, be it the Conservative Party, the Bloc Québécois or any other party, wrote this ruling. This was a ruling of the independent Deputy Speaker after the Speaker recused himself. That is what we are dealing with today. We are not dealing with a character assassination; to be frank, we are dealing with a question of character.

That question of character relates to the Speaker's ability to act in an independent, non-partisan manner, to act as a referee with respect for all members and their privileges. That is, in fact, what we are dealing with today. In the short period since the Speaker was appointed as such by the House, we have not just dealt with this on one occasion; there have been two other occasions.

I know that colleagues on our side have been talking about those instances. Of course, the most famous one happened in Ontario. It was shortly after the Speaker was appointed that he felt compelled, in his Speaker's robe and using the resources of the Speaker's position, to make a video for the Ontario Liberal Party convention. I recall when I first saw that video. It was a Saturday night. I was sitting there, as a former House leader, looking at this video and thinking, What in God's name is he doing? It was partisan. I recall sending a text to our current House leader, the member for Regina—Qu'Appelle, and I asked him if he had seen it. How could the Speaker have such bad judgment, poor judgment, that he would make such a video for the Ontario Liberal convention? Of course, that was the first time that the question of privilege came up.

Then there was another incident, in Washington, D.C., where the Speaker travelled on Speaker business and ended up at a partisan event that was videotaped and broadcast on social media. There, he talked about his experiences as a Liberal Party member.

Now, of course, there is the latest incident, talking about the Speaker appearing at a fundraiser. However, within the notice for the fundraiser, there was a partisan attack on the Leader of the Opposition.

It calls into question not only the Speaker's ability to be non-partisan but also, in many ways, his judgment. That is the fundamental issue we are dealing with today. It did not just happen once or twice. It has happened three times at this point. I think the ability of the opposition to function in its constitutional obligation and not have confidence in the Speaker is the root of what this question is all about.

When the Speaker was elected, he promised this chamber and its members that he would act in a non-partisan way, that he would not get in the way of debate and that he would be the referee, which is his role. However, time and time again, we have seen otherwise. This was not only the case in these three incidents but also in rulings and judgments, not the least of which was removing the Leader of the Opposition from the House during question period. That is something that I have not seen in the nine years I have been here. Many members whom I have spoken to, some with a long history in this place, and some with knowledge of history, had not seen anything like that occur before.

I can say that I was here the day when that happened. I was watching the Speaker. We had started off on a Monday. It had been a pretty raucous question period. I know that the Speaker had, at his left hand, the notice of removal. Somebody was going to leave the chamber that day. I am convinced of that, and it happened. We actually had two members that left. One was the member for Lethbridge, and then that was quickly followed up by the Leader of the Opposition. The challenge right now is trust in the ability of the Speaker to conduct himself in this non-partisan way and with impartiality. That really is what this is all about. Again, this prima facie case of privilege that the member for Grande Prairie—Mackenzie brought up is what we are dealing with today. It was not written or initiated by the opposition; it is something that was initiated by the Speaker of the House.

I can say that I do a lot of events; we all do. There is a vetting process that goes on for any event that I attend by my staff to make sure that I am not using House of Commons resources and that those events that I am attending are, in fact, proper events. There is no convincing me that someone in the Speaker's office or the Speaker himself did not know what was on that invitation.

Finally, I would like to finish off with what I perceive as a decline in our democracy. I see an erosion of respect for our institutions. The fact is that the Liberals and the NDP are standing up in this place and seemingly defending the actions of the Speaker, and they have been doing it since this debate started yesterday. This speaks to a lack of respect for this institution.

If anyone had any honour or integrity at all, they could see the chaos this is creating. The fact is that their decisions and their lack of judgment, impartiality and non-partisanship is causing such disruption in this place. This speaks to a decline in our democracy and a lack of respect for our institutions.

The first time the Speaker conducted himself in this way, when he made that video for the Ontario Liberal leadership convention, I said that he should have to resign. I believe that was the appropriate time for him to resign. Now we have two other instances where the Speaker has shown this lack of judgment and lack of impartiality.

As far as I am concerned, there is no other option. Almost half of the House believes that the Speaker has acted in a way that is unbecoming in terms of his role as Speaker and that he does, in fact, need to resign.

I appreciate what the Bloc tried to do before, which was to bring a unanimous consent motion to have a secret ballot when this vote occurs. I believe there are still people within the Liberal Party, and perhaps some within the NDP, who conduct themselves with honour. They see the actions of the Speaker and how that is causing a lack of respect for this place. If a secret ballot were held, I believe that some of those members, other than the ones who are going to stand up as they ask their questions, would actually want to see the Speaker removed, as the motion states.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, the deputy leader just spoke and said this. It is not a direct quote, but it is pretty darn close, because I had to make notes as she was saying it. It will show tomorrow in Hansard. She said, in regard to this partisan posting, that her conclusions were, with respect to the Speaker, that he “probably, might have, most likely approved” of it. We have a third party that has said it was fully responsible and has actually apologized for it; then we have the deputy leader of the Conservative Party saying the Speaker most likely approved of it. That is what the Conservative Party is basing its evidence on when saying the Speaker has got to go.

I think there is a lot more truth to what the member just finished saying. This is a personal thing. He said that the Speaker should have resigned long ago. Could he provide more clarification on his statement that he does not believe the Speaker should have been given one chance?

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, in the first instance, shortly after he was pronounced Speaker, the Speaker engaged in a partisan message to a partisan party convention, the Liberal Party convention. He was in his robes, using Speaker resources. There have been people in this place who have resigned or have been forced to resign, and did the right thing by resigning, for much lesser grievances than that. Therefore, yes, I do believe that the Speaker should have resigned in the first instance.

Now we have additional instances, two more, in fact, of partisan activity by the Speaker. That, to me, speaks more to his character, his lack of judgment and his inability to act in a non-partisan manner while sitting in the chair.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, this is a question and comment period, but I am going to make a comment because I am no longer sure what questions to ask in this circus atmosphere. It is degrading for the institution we represent.

My colleague's leader would not have been ejected if he had made respectable comments in the House, comments worthy of the institution we represent.

My Liberal colleagues are defending the indefensible. It is a lesson in politics 101. I do not even understand why we are here today. As my colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue said, three strikes is the limit in baseball.

Trying to be the adult in the room, the Bloc Québécois moved a motion. We made a democratic proposal that a secret ballot be held. It is a completely democratic process. I could hear people in the NDP shouting that they did not want that. Frankly, what is happening right now is degrading for the institution we represent. That is my comment.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, it will come as no surprise that I agree with many of the things the member said, including the idea of a secret ballot.

However, the circus she is talking about is the product of the Liberal-NDP coalition. That coalition is undemocratic. It is bringing our democracy down.

That is what I am very worried about, to be quite frank.

[Alexandre Boulerice, NDP, Rosemont—La Petite-Patrie, QC]

Madam Speaker, in his speech, my Conservative Party colleague stressed respect for institutions, parliamentarians' work and everything we do here, but we must also respect the work of Parliament.

The Standing Committee on Health is currently conducting an important study on the opioid crisis. During question period, the Conservative Party leader shouted himself hoarse levelling truly vicious accusations about the crisis. Meanwhile, people are dying out there.

Right now, the Standing Committee on Health is in Montreal meeting with people who are experts on this issue. Does anyone know how many Conservative members came? Not a single one. They do not want to hear the truth. They do not want to know what community groups are dealing with. That, too, shows a lack of respect for our institutions.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will answer that question in less than five seconds.

If the member had any respect for this institution and if he had any respect for our democracy, he would cut off the unholy alliance and coalition he has with the Liberals and allow Canadians to call an election so that we can get back to some sense of normalcy in this country.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Madam Speaker, this place, the House of Commons, is the seat, arguably, of democracy in Canada, one of the most important seats and, arguably, it is also the only thing that prevents Canadians from settling their disagreements through violent conflict. Our tradition in here of solving our problems through discourse is what makes Canada Canada. What makes this place this place is the Speaker's role. It is the Speaker's charge under our Standing Orders and under our traditions to maintain impartiality. That has not happened.

I want to try to implore some of my colleagues from other political parties to think about why the Speaker needs to go, in concrete terms, with regard to each of the Speaker's three roles. However, before I do that, I want to briefly comment on the deputy leader of the opposition's point that was made about trust.

The current occupant of the Speaker's chair had a big trust deficit to overcome with the House, because, historically, Parliament has never had someone who had a government appointment take on the role of Speaker in that same Parliament. Not only did he have a minor government appointment; he had the most partisan appointment of all: parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister. That is like the Prime Minister's defence guy on any topic. So, there was a trust deficit to overcome.

What happened, now that we are on the third incident, the third case of privilege where the Speaker has demonstrated partisan behaviour, is that it is very clear that impartiality has been breached. Now it is not just about this place; it is about Canadians' faith in this place being able to fairly and neutrally function as a place where their voices can be heard, because if the Speaker is being partisan for the Liberal Party, then the 120,000 people I represent do not have fair hearing in this House automatically. We can respect each other as partisan for our ability to be partisan, but I implore the Speaker to resign on his own accord, because his legacy is now having breached that impartiality, to the point where any decision he makes, any ruling he makes, is going to be viewed through that lens, and that degrades Canadian democracy. So, when we are talking about wasting House time, the Speaker should have resigned already. That is the right thing to do. That is what he should have done.

Now, how does this impact his three roles? First of all, “the Speaker presides over debate in the House and is responsible for enforcing and interpreting all rules...of the House.” Already, the Speaker, outside of the three instances, has had to recuse himself on questions regarding the government withholding information in Order Paper questions or misleading the House. Why? It is because they were Order Paper questions he signed off on in his role as parliamentary secretary, which is problematic in and of itself. Then, with this partisanship, not just allegations, but a clear case of privilege being found, which is why we are debating this right now, when he makes the decision to remove someone, it is going to be debated through a partisan lens automatically because of this partisan finding, and he has already lost the confidence of a significant number in the House.

Many opinion columns have been written, and rightly so, asking how the Speaker can continue on in his role when two of the major political parties say that he has lost confidence. This is not something that is par for the course. This does not happen every Parliament. This is the first time it has happened. It is a remarkable decline in Parliament, and he is presiding over it. If we are going to talk about people wasting the time of the House, he should have resigned already of his own accord, which is the honourable thing that he should have done. So, he cannot do his first role as he cannot neutrally preside over the proceedings of this place.

His second duty is as the chief administrative officer of the House. I did raise this issue in committee, in PROC, today. I also raised this with the House leader of the NDP in debate today, respectfully, but he did not answer the question, which is this: Honestly, how, given these partisan allegations, can the Speaker be the presiding officer over the House of Commons' harassment policy? How is that possible?

Let us put everything aside for a minute. This is really serious. If we look through the transcript of the day in May 2016 when the Prime Minister elbowed former NDP MP Ruth Ellen Brosseau in the chest, I draw the attention of the House to the comments of the member for Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, as well as the member for Esquimalt—Saanich—Sooke. The member for Churchill—Keewatinook Aski said, “if we apply a gendered lens, it is very important that we recognize that young women in this place need to feel safe to come here, to work here”. She gave a whole detailed account of what happened.

The Speaker jumped up, right after the member for Churchill—Keewatinook Aski spoke these words, and said, “if one wants to exaggerate the situation and to make this into something that it was not, or make it reminiscent of a dive in the 2006 World Cup, perhaps we can go on.” He said, “I think [it] might have been exaggerated”. He was not only denigrating Ruth Ellen Brosseau, but he was also denigrating the account of harassment from the member for Churchill—Keewatinook Aski. Then he goes on to say, “What happened was exactly as the Prime Minister had described it.” These two women had experienced it differently.

Now, putting partisanship aside for a second, we are being asked in this place to suspend our disbelief that the Speaker can somehow magically go from that to being the neutral arbiter of the House of Commons harassment policy.

He now has three strikes of partisanship against him. How do we or any staff member know that vexatious complaints are not going to be made? How do I know that I could go there and not have that leaked to the Liberal whip and have it go to the media? He has effectively put a chill on anybody wanting to talk about harassment in this place, and yet the NDP is propping him up. Why? Again, this boggles my mind. It is fundamentally wrong.

The last thing is that the Speaker is “the representative or spokesperson for the House in its relations with authorities...outside Parliament.” Yet, the Speaker was in his robes, talking about being a young Liberal, in this capacity, in Washington, D.C. His international relation is now as a spokesperson for the Liberal Party. Come on.

He just needs to resign. That would make everything easier. I have no idea what is going on in the NDP caucus right now. It boggles my mind. I have no idea how they are supporting him. It really boggles my mind. A supply and confidence agreement with the government should not include an agreement to cover up and support the partisan activities of the Speaker of the House of Commons.

Then, the deputy House leader is saying that it was the Liberal Party, and the Speaker could not have possibly known about it. I would like to quote something that the leader of the Liberal Party, the CEO, the executive-in-chief of the Liberal Party said when allegations about former justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould and the whole SNC-Lavalin scandal came out. The first thing that the chief operating officer, the person in charge of the Liberal Party today, said was that the story in the Globe was “false”. How many times have we heard the Liberal Party, the commander-in-chief of the Liberal Party, say, “Oh no, it is false. That is not what happened.”

I have respect for every person in this House. I would like to think I actually have a good relationship with many people in this House. Out of self-respect, how can somebody stand up here and ask this of the House? How are we supposed to believe that the Speaker did not know about this, and that we are just to take the Liberal Party's word, after nine years of hearing that the story in the Globe is false.

This is just amateur hour. The Speaker should just resign. If he is watching this, he should resign. He should stop the debate and just resign. There are many other people in this House, not me, who could do this job in an impartial way. There are people who have stood up against their party from time to time, who have shown some independence in this place, who could do this job and respect the democratic traditions that this is based upon.

Yet here we are, for the third time, debating this. When we are talking about a waste of time, it is not a waste of time to protect Canadian democracy, but the Speaker is sure wasting the House's time, and that is a shame.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, sadly, the character assassination continues. I have been a parliamentarian for well over 30 years. I have seen New Democrat Speakers, Progressive Conservative Speakers, Conservative Speakers and Liberal Speakers.

I really do not appreciate when individuals across the way try to imply that they know it all when it comes to what qualifies an individual to be a Speaker. The Conservatives then twist and distort what has previously taken place. PROC came forward with a recommendation for one purpose, and that was to fit the Conservative agenda of trying to demonstrate that Parliament is dysfunctional.

When will the Conservatives give up and start looking at issues that Canadians are concerned about? Whether it is affordability, pharmacare or the dental plan, there are all sorts of issues that Canadians want us to be dealing with. Why the farce?

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Madam Speaker, that was an embarrassingly amateur display of gaslighting, which is not befitting of a member of that tenure. If the member really wanted to do his role justice, he would have got up and refuted any of the just points I made. However, he did not. He gaslit me. That is what he has done to Canadians.

If the partisan Speaker wants to put his party out of its misery, he should just resign so that those sorts of embarrassing displays can stop, and we can get on with the nation's business.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, in my previous intervention, I forgot to address one thing that I consider equally unacceptable and degrading for our democracy, and that is when members sink to spreading disinformation or lies or to using divide-and-conquer tactics.

Claiming that challenging the president of the Assemblée parlementaire de la Francophonie was an insult to francophones outside Quebec is a lie. It is disinformation. It is an attempt to divide and conquer. Accusing us, the Bloc Québécois, of dwelling on this matter because the Speaker is a Quebecker is a low blow. I have no words to describe how absurd this attack is. Whether or not the Speaker is a Quebecker is irrelevant.

I heard some members of the NDP and even some Liberals accuse us of objecting to the fact that the Speaker is a Quebecker. Ultimately, all this does is divide and conquer. It helps no one in our democratic system.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Madam Speaker, I agree. There is only one qualification for the Speaker role, and that is impartiality. The Speaker has demonstrated three times that he cannot be impartial. If anybody else, in any other industry, in any other setting around the country, had failed the core competency of their job three times, what would happen? They would be fired. The Speaker should resign.

[Lindsay Mathyssen, NDP, London—Fanshawe, ON]

Madam Speaker, I find it very difficult, within the context of what the member has put forward, to take this seriously.

I have just gone on to Hansard and did a quick search of our current Deputy Speaker, the member for West Nova. He has said so many things that are partisan as well. I could list them off. He criticizes the Liberals consistently. He was an opposition member. However, that seems to have no play in this place.

Throughout our careers, there are roles we have here. The member, herself, was on the government side. She is no longer. Our roles change. I believe her argument against the current Speaker, in the context she was using throughout her speech, is poor.

I would like to hear her response to that, considering we all have roles, and they change over time. This could be said about the current Deputy Speaker. It could be said about you, Madam Speaker. This is all applicable.

[Michelle Rempel, Conservative, Calgary Nose Hill, AB]

Madam Speaker, tu quoque is the most obvious logical fallacy in debate. The member did it, too. If the member was going to take this logical fallacy to the end, she should have raised a question of privilege on any of those matters she just raised, but she will not. Why is that? It is because they do not meet the level of partisanship the Speaker has been found guilty of.

She knows in her heart that this man should not be Speaker. I encourage her to go to her House leader to say that this is the third time this has happened, so why are they making her vote to prop up a guy who spoke out against a woman who was elbowed in the chest by the Prime Minister?

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

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.

[Ruby Sahota, Liberal, Brampton North, ON]

Madam Speaker, so far, what I have been hearing throughout the debate is “do as we say, not as we do”. It has been indicated several times that the former Conservative Speaker also promoted and went to fundraising events.

It has been cleared up in this case that the fundraising event invitation did not go out from the Speaker or from the Speaker's office. What does the member have to say about that? I find it quite hypocritical that a previous Conservative Speaker attended fundraisers and promoted fundraisers on his social media, yet the Conservatives have wasted almost two days in the House talking about this matter when we could be talking about affordability.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

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.

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from South Shore—St. Margarets for his speech, in which he talked about partisanship. He said that a Speaker should rise above partisanship. That is an interesting thing to point out in this debate.

However, I wonder if he could comment on something else that we have come to expect from the Speaker, because his role is essentially to make judgment calls on what is happening in the House. It is really all about exercising judgment.

Does my colleague believe that the current Speaker has shown good judgment, and is that a quality that should be essential, along with impartiality, in the role of Speaker of the House of Commons?

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

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.

[Anna Roberts, Conservative, King—Vaughan, ON]

Madam Speaker, my friend from South Shore—St. Margarets has been involved in politics for a long time.

I know you are older, but that is not what I mean. You are very experienced, so I look to you for—