The Speaker of the House of Commons, Greg Fergus, is the target of a new partisanship complaint, the same day a parliamentary committee concludes that he can remain in office with a simple financial sanction.
“There is evidence of other partisan activity in which the president participated. I have a photo of the president at an event of the MP for Pontiac,” revealed Conservative House Leader Andrew Scheer on Thursday morning.
He brandished in the House what appears to be a copy of an invitation to a liberal “militant cocktail” where his presence was announced, in a riding of Pontiac, in Outaouais, Quebec, which is neighboring his own.
In an Instagram post dated November 18, we can see Greg Fergus alongside federal Liberal MP Sophie Chatel and provincial Liberal André Fortin, at the British pub, in the Aylmer district of Gatineau.
“This week, I had the privilege of participating in a remarkable event with my colleague Greg Fergus,” writes the MP. The duty noted that Mr Fergus “liked” the post.
The Conservative Party, like the Bloc Québécois, demanded the resignation of the new Speaker of the Commons, Greg Fergus, for appearing in a farewell video of an Ontario provincial Liberal politician. He was dressed in his black silk toga, the attire associated with his role in Federal Parliament. The matter was then sent to committee to agree recommendations, which arrived on Thursday morning.
The page is not turned yet “
The Procedure Committee, which heard testimony from more than a dozen MPs earlier this week, ultimately recommended that the Speaker reimburse “an adequate amount for the use of parliamentary resources that were not related to the exercise of his parliamentary functions. » The amount claimed is not specified in the report filed Thursday.
However, neither the Bloc nor the Conservative Party accepted the conclusions of the report tabled Thursday. Judging the mistake to be unforgivable, they are still demanding his resignation.
“No amount of money could restore the trust and goodwill necessary for Mr. Fergus to do his job,” write the conservatives in the forty-page report.
” The page is not turned yet. The president cannot continue to preside over the House,” declared Bloc MP Claude DeBellefeuille in the press scrum.
She clarified that her party intends to do everything to harm the work of Greg Fergus in the future, if he does not resign by January. She mentioned the tabling of motions of non-confidence or heckling during the debates. The Bloc elected officials also affirmed that they will no longer recognize Mr. Fergus by his title of “Mr. President” during the debates.
Saved by the NDP
The Government House Leader, Karina Gould, indicated that in her opinion, “the attitudes of the Conservatives will not change, whether it is Mr. Fergus or anyone else” in the Speaker’s chair. She complains in particular that Pierre Poilievre’s troops are slowing down the debates by obstructing parliament.
The president’s fate rested essentially in the hands of the New Democratic Party (NDP), the only one that had not requested his resignation. NDP MP Peter Julian had already announced that he would seek a “financial sanction” from Mr. Fergus at the start of the week.
In addition to a financial penalty for President Fergus, elected in the riding of Hull-Aylmer, the committee also recommends that a notebook “which presents clear limits in terms of impartiality and non-partisanship” be prepared for the future presidents. Mr Fergus is also being asked to apologize again, clarifying that he “regrets the situation” and that the filming was inappropriate.
In their dissenting report, the Conservatives note that the NDP “defied the will of the House by agreeing to bring back recommendations that, taken as a whole, amount to a slap on the wrist.”
The Bloc also published a dissident report Thursday morning. In his recommendations, he proposes in particular the holding of a secret vote for the election of a new president. “The actions of Speaker Fergus constitute a breach of parliamentary privilege and that a significant portion of the members of the House have lost confidence in him as Speaker,” reports the party.