(Ottawa) Parliamentary leaders of the federal Liberals and New Democrats say the Conservatives are rolling out a series of attacks on the independence of legislative speakers.
Their accusation comes a day after the federal Conservatives failed for the third time to secure the resignation of Speaker of the House of Commons Greg Fergus over allegations he was too partisan for the role.
But Liberal House Leader Steven MacKinnon says “some” are creating a culture of bullying.
“This culture of bullying the president is something we’ve seen in other legislatures and I think Canadians are rightly horrified by it,” he said.
His NDP counterpart, Peter Julian, draws a connection to Saskatchewan, where the provincial government’s House leader, Jeremy Harrison, resigned after admitting to bringing a gun into the legislature more than a decade ago .
The resignation came after the speaker of that legislature accused the Saskatchewan Conservative Party of trying to intimidate him as an impartial arbiter of the debate.
While Mr. Poilievre is undermining the credibility of the Speaker of the House in Ottawa, Mr. Harrison is doing the same in Regina, Mr. Julian accused.
“This is a worrying undercurrent in Ottawa and Saskatchewan. It’s a trend now,” he said in an interview with The Canadian Press.
“It’s not something we’ve seen before from the Conservatives, but since Pierre Poilievre became leader, we’ve seen it more and more,” he added.
A spokesperson for Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says there is no link between what happened with another party in Saskatchewan and the functioning of Parliament and the federal Conservatives.
“This is just another pathetic and desperate attempt by the NDP coalition to distract and defend Justin Trudeau and his Liberal masters,” said Sebastian Skamski.
The Conservatives argue that Mr. Fergus has shown bias, notably by expelling their leader from the House of Commons last month for refusing to withdraw his comment calling the Prime Minister “wacko” in English.
The Speaker of the House was forced to pay a $1,500 fine and apologize after paying a partisan tribute to an outgoing Ontario interim Liberal leader in a video shown at the party’s leadership convention.
The Liberals apologized to him earlier this month after an invitation to an event in his riding was posted with language attacking the Conservatives. They admitted that the invitation had been issued in error by a party staffer.
The incident sparked a Conservative motion to oust Fergus, which failed on Tuesday when the Liberals and NDP voted against it.