New Speaker of the Commons

[FiveParadox]

:arrow: Backgrounder

The Speaker of the House of Commons presides over sittings of the House of Commons, decides on questions of order, interprets the requirements of procedure, precedent and the Standing Orders, and acts as the Chairperson of the Board of Internal Economy (the governing body of the House).

The Speaker has the authority to represent the Government of Canada and the House abroad; he or she receives guests, delegates and foreign heads of state, representing the House, the Government and in some aspects, the Crown. However, he or she is quite discouraged from making any overtly partisan action during his or her term — to do so would likely constitute a prima facie breach of the privilege of Members.

:arrow: The Next Speaker of the House of Commons

The most likely choice for the next Speaker was the Honourable Chuck Strahl; however, since he has been appointed as a Minister of the Crown, that would no longer be possible; therefore,

who do you think should be elected the next Speaker of the House of Commons?

 

[JomZ]

I don't know who exactly but I think maybe a woman should be elected. Since they were under represented in the Cabinet.

I don't know exactly how nominations go for the position. But, since Harper took some flak for the lack of women (6 out of 29) in his cabinet, maybe his party can nominate one of the remaining members.

I think it would be a symbolic gesture to have a woman speaker in both houses and as G.G.

 

[FiveParadox]

I would agree, JomZ; however, the election of the Speaker of the House of Commons is not a lone prerogative of the Conservative Party of Canada. Any member who does not indicate otherwise to the Clerk of the House at least twenty-four hours in advance, is deemed nominated; then, every Member of the House of Commons votes for someone. In each round of voting, if no one person got the highest number of votes, then the member with the lowest number of votes is kicked from the list, and members vote for the remaining nominees, and this continues until one member comes out with a majority of the votes.

 

[Lotuslander]

I think the Tories could conceivably want to keep Peter Milliken as Speaker as every vote is precious. By tradition and convention the Speaker always votes with the government in the case of a tie so having a Liberal as Speaker would not pose any danger of the government falling on a tied vote. Additionally, the Government would gain another vote vis a vis the opposition Liberals. However, on matters of privilegde etcetera a Liberal speaker might side with his party instead of being neutral and the Speaker does have considerable power in the allotment of offices and office budget and other internal regulations of the House of Commons.

I would have thought that Diane Ablonczy, who was left out of cabinet, would have been a good pick but she of course is a parliamentary secretary. I think one of the challenges to the election of a Tory speaker is that there are not many Tories who are fluently bilingual and the ones who are most obviously bilingual (those from Quebec) have limited parliamentary experience. But perhaps Luc Harvey or another Quebec back bencher could be in the running. I think another MP who could be in the running is Brian Pallister who I think is bilingual (though don't quote me on that) he was left out of cabinet so that he could think about runnning for the provincial PC leadership which in the end he decided against. One of the benefits of Pallister is that he has a fair bit of parliamentary experience being in Ottawa since at least 2000. I think he may have alos served as an MLA. If Greg Thompson can speak French I think he could also be in the running. I'm sure that most of the Tories who are bilingual have already been appointed to the cabinet or a parliamentary secretaryship so it could be slim pickings.

I also would not rule out the possibility of a NDPer becoming Speaker, perhaps Bill Blaikie, who is the dean of the House. The Tories need to make alliance somewhere to get legislation passed and having a Dipper Speaker, who could give NDP members plum office space or more research money or positions on important internal Hof C committees could be quite disirable. Also in the same vein A Blocquiste might conceivably become Speaker, though the BQ may reject this option as the Speaker does preform ceremonial duties relating to the Crown and is the Crown's liason with the House of Commons.

 

[FiveParadox]

I, too, Lotuslander, have considered the pros and cons as to whether Peter Milliken should be re-elected as the Speaker of the House of Commons. In my opinion, we could benefit from having such an experienced Speaker take up the Chair in what could be a very heated opening of the Thirty-ninth Parliament, where we could see both the Government and the Opposition bring out "creative" measures to trounce each other — I would like to see someone experienced on the Chair, to rule on questions of order in a way which he has, as he has proven so often, ruled based on procedure rather than by his party.

By tradition and convention the Speaker always votes with the government in the case of a tie so having a Liberal as Speaker would not pose any danger of the government falling on a tied vote. Additionally, the Government would gain another vote vis a vis the opposition Liberals.

On this point, we disagree; by convention, the Speaker rules to keep the status quo or, where possible, to permit the continuation of debate (thus his casting vote on An Act to authorize the Minister of Finance to make certain payments — by voting in favour of the motion, he permitted the House to further debate the legislation for third reading), thus giving the House a chance to decide on its own at a later time. However, since legislation that comes to a vote in the House is more often than not Government-sponsored legislation, it may seem as though rulings are biased in favour of the Government — however, I would argue that this is not the case.

 

[Finder]

Well if a Conservative is elected it will make one less vote for the conservatives. =-D