Madam Speaker, I would like to start by saying that trust is a really difficult thing to earn, a really easy thing to lose and an incredibly difficult thing to re-establish. What we have heard in the House today, time and time again, from members of the Liberal Party and from those who support them at every opportunity, the NDP members, is that for some reason, this is a waste of time. We have heard that this is a waste of House time or that this is an attack on the institution.
In fact, it is exactly the opposite of that. It is a question of a Speaker that has brought us here, who has acted in a partisan way, not just once or twice, but three times. We are here to discuss the partisan actions of a partisan Liberal Speaker serving his partisan Liberal boss, aided and abetted by his partisan coalition members in the NDP, occupying a job and a role in this place that is distinctly supposed to be non-partisan. Since becoming Speaker of the House six months ago, he has betrayed the trust not only of the House but also of the members of the House. The impartiality of the position does not exist in his world.
I have not been here very long, but I do not remember, and I do not even remember reading in history about, a Speaker who has been so embroiled in scandal after scandal and who has been chased down the street outside of this place to answer questions about his conduct. It has only been six months. If one types in “Speaker scandal”, I think the name of that chair occupant would come up as the first search term on Google. That is where we are.
Let us go back. First, the Speaker recorded a video. This is the first of the three that I will talk about, and I will probably talk about some more because it is not even three; it is more than that. First, he recorded a video that he played at a Liberal partisan convention, while appearing in Speaker's robes in his office and while using Speaker and House resources to do that. He praised an outgoing Ontario Liberal leader between segments of two former leaders at a Liberal convention. I think anybody would believe that was a partisan activity.
Then, the Speaker travelled to Washington on the taxpayers' dime, on the dime of the resources of his office, of the House, and he used his perch as Speaker to muse fondly about his years as a young Liberal. This is also, objectively, a partisan thing to do in a non-partisan job that is meant to be the referee of this place and to have the trust of the members to know he will act in a manner that will treat every single member of the House equally.
Those are two instances. Talk about tone deaf. Finally, it is the latest offence, the one that has brought us here today, of the Speaker posting a blatantly partisan fundraising message on a website, personally attacking the Leader of the Opposition, the same Leader of the Opposition who, just weeks ago, he threw out of this place for doing the exact same thing the Prime Minister did moments before and moments after. This is, of course, after he threw out another member of the Conservative caucus for asking her to withdraw a statement, which she did. It is in the blues. We are probably going to have another day when we talk about the Speaker's frank inability to be impartial in his chair. We will get to that.
In that same week, the Speaker posted an ad, and it is strange to me. I have not been an MP for very long, and I keep a fairly busy schedule. The way it works in my office is that I have a great staff, and they send me a note and ask me, “Can you do at this time? Can you be here?” I say yes or no to all of these things. In some cases, my office says yes or no to these things, knowing full well that I would want to do something and that it would fit into my schedule.
Therefore, it is very difficult to believe that an ad for “A Summer Evening with the Honourable [Speaker]” mentioned, who occupies the chair, with event details, such as a time, a date and a place, would not be vetted by anyone. That does not really happen. In fact, when someone appears at events, particularly at events where they sell tickets to listen to a person, in this case, delivering really partisan messages about the guy whom he just kicked out of the House for doing the same thing as the guy who put him in that chair, it would be hard to believe that nobody in his office, nobody in his orbit or he himself would not have known that he would be appearing at a certain place, at a certain time, at this event where tickets are being sold to hear him speak.
All of that is to say that one time is a mistake and two times could be a coincidence, but three times is a pattern. It is a pattern by somebody who has a deep history in the most partisan politics. We will hear from the Liberals that this is somehow an attack on the character of the Speaker, but this is exactly the opposite of that. This is talking about the role he has taken on as an impartial referee of this place, one that should treat members, as I said, equally. This is, of course, after a history of being the first Speaker with an ethics violation, so that is a historic first.
I was not here at the time, but it does not take very much to go online to see how he reacted to an incident that happened in this place, when the Prime Minister elbowed an MP in the chest. He was the first one on his feet to defend that action and to say that the MP's story or version of events was experienced differently or was an overreaction. In fact, when he was asked that today, at the very time this was being talked about in the House by my colleague and friend from Calgary Nose Hill, he actually denied rising to his feet, defending the Prime Minister and putting forward an alternative version of events, talking about an exaggeration. He said at committee today that he did not say that.
That brings me to the NDP. To see a party, which once stood for values and for the working class and which once was in opposition in the House, defend the Prime Minister at every opportunity, rather than somebody in its own caucus, is the definition of “weakness”. It is one of its own members who was elbowed by the Prime Minister. There are videos of it. This is not something that Conservatives are embellishing in the House. We can see it on a screen. New Democrats are defending the guy who got up on his feet to tell people that there was a different version of events or that the member was exaggerating.
What is worse is that it is the Speaker who adjudicates the harassment policy in the House. How on earth would any member of the House feel comfortable or feel that they could get a fair trial with somebody who was on his feet, defending the Prime Minister before even seeing the tape, telling the member that she experienced it differently, that it was an exaggeration or that she somehow dove as if it was for the World Cup. I do not know what terminology was used; it was blatantly weird. It was bizarre. Someone called it wacko.
This is what we are here to talk about today. We are talking about a man who occupies an office and who should be impartial. He has not done so. If he had even a modicum of integrity in this place, he would resign before I encourage members to vote him out.