(Ottawa) Because he called Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “crazy” and “extremist”, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre was kicked out of question period in the House on Tuesday.
The rebellion which earned the conservative leader this suspension began with his intervention on the issue of the decriminalization of drugs.
“It’s a crazy policy from this crazy prime minister,” he said.
Speaker of the House of Commons Greg Fergus – who had just expelled Conservative Rachael Thomas – lectured him.
” No. No. No. It’s not… there are a couple of things happening today that are unacceptable,” he insisted.
In the minutes that followed, four times rather than once, the arbiter of parliamentary proceedings asked Pierre Poilievre to withdraw his comments.
He was in turn entitled to: “I replace crazy with extremist”, “I will replace it with radical”, and “I replace the word crazy with extremist”.
After the third attempt, a brief meeting followed between President Fergus and officials responsible for parliamentary procedure.
He came away with this request: “I am going to ask the honorable Leader of the Opposition, one last time, to please withdraw this comment, and only to withdraw this comment.”
Answer: “I only remove it and replace it with the adjective mentioned previously,” challenged Pierre Poilievre.
And that was the straw that broke the camel’s back: the leader of the Conservative Party had to leave his chair.
In a display of spontaneity, Bloc leader Yves-François Blanchet took up the challenge in his turn to speak.
“Mr. President, I would like to congratulate you for showing common sense,” he quipped, mocking the conservative slogan.
A chaotic session
Question period was only a few minutes old when the knives started flying on Tuesday.
Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre was heard calling the Prime Minister “racist”, and the latter replied that his leadership style was “shameful” and “malicious”.
After a few calls to order, the Speaker of the House of Commons, Greg Fergus, intervened with Conservative MP Rachael Thomas, who had criticized his work as referee of the works.
When he asked her to withdraw her comments, the elected Alberta representative replied that the president was behaving “in a disgraceful manner”.
She was consequently expelled from the compound.