A problem emerges for Speaker Fergus. What will he do?

A CBC story presents a big challenge for newly-elected Speaker Greg Fergus. I just raised a Question of Privilege on the matter.

A big news story the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation broke today inadvertently exposed a potentially explosive question for the House of Commons: can a Speaker rule on a potential breach of the rules that he signed off on in a previous government role?

The CBC story in question exposed that a trip that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau took to Montana cost far more than the government reported to the House of Commons. In a response to an official document called an Order Paper Question (OPQ) from Member of Parliament Luc Berthold, the government said the trip cost $23,846 (link to OPQ included here). However, an investigation by the CBC discovered that the trip actually cost $228,839.

Part of the cost of this trip is the provision of security for the Prime Minister, which is a necessary function of his role (and no one is questioning the need for that security). However, the issue at hand is that, from the CBC story, the government appears to have hid the total cost from a Member of Parliament in an official request for details of this expenditure.

This is a big problem. Canadians have a right to know how their tax dollars are spent, and if they are spent wisely. In the instance of the story at hand, this principle translates to the public having a right to know things like why the cost of the Prime Minister’s trip was so high, and whether - as it was a personal trip - he personally paid for the full value of his accommodations.

It is impossible for Members to debate this issue without this information, which is probably why Mr. Berthold requested this information from the government via an Order Paper Question. Now that it has come to light that the government hid some of these details in a response to a Member, recourse should be explored.

Typically, it would be the Speaker of the House of Commons who would rule on a matter like this. But the problem now facing the House of Commons is that the government representative who signed off on the potentially misleading response was elected to the Speaker's Chair on Tuesday.

The Order Paper Question that is at the heart of the CBC story about the cost of the Montana trip asked the Privy Council Office, which supports the Prime Minister’s Office and the Cabinet, to disclose the cost of the trip. The Privy Council Office would have responsibility for planning the logistics around such travel, and have oversight on budgetary matters. So when Greg Fergus signed off its response to Mr. Berthold’s Order Paper Question, which was clearly incorrect based on CBC’s reporting, he may have misled the House of Commons.

So, in lay terms, the problem the House now faces is this.

One of the foundations of the Canadian Parliament - and Canadian democracy - is the concept of "Parliamentary privilege," which is defined as "the rights and immunities that are deemed necessary for the House of Commons, as an institution, and its members, as representatives of the electorate, to fulfill their functions." When a Member of Parliament feels that their privilege - their ability to complete their job - has been breached, they can raise something called a Question of Privilege in the House of Commons. The Speaker of the House of Commons then undertakes deliberations on the matter and makes a ruling on whether the House of Commons should consider the matter further.

Under normal circumstances, it would be virtually impossible for the Speaker of the House of Commons to ever find themselves in a potential conflict of interest situation when making one of these rulings. That's because the Speaker is a Member of Parliament elected to the office by their peers at the start of a Parliament, immediately after an election. Elections wipe the slate of Parliament clean. In turn, a Speaker wouldn't be caused to rule on matters that took place (that they may have been involved in) from the previous Parliament. 

However, this week the House of Commons had to elect a new Speaker in the middle of this Parliamentary term after former Speaker Anthony Rota resigned in the wake of recognizing a former Nazi soldier during an address to Parliament by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. Greg Fergus, a Quebec Member of Parliament, was elected to the role.

Newly minted Speaker Fergus also held several official governmental roles until his election to the Speaker's chair on Tuesday. In fact, up until September, Fergus had served as the Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister. In this capacity, he would have had formal responsibility for undertaking duties on behalf of the Prime Minister, like answering questions on his behalf in Question Period, tabling documents, and signing off on things like Order Paper Questions.

And therein lies the problem at hand.

Now-Speaker Greg Fergus will now have to rule whether there's enough evidence for the House to consider if Greg Fergus, former Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, potentially breached Members’ privilege by misleading the House when he signed off on the Order Paper Question about the Prime Minister's trip to Montana that CBC reported about this morning.

The occupant of the Speaker’s chair must be viewed as an unimpeachable, neutral arbiter of House proceedings. A Speaker having to rule on a question of privilege on a matter caused by them during their former role in government is another, incredible, matter entirely. Members, mostly Liberal by all accounts, who voted for him should have considered this prior to casting their ballot.

To be clear, I bear no ill will to Speaker Fergus. He is an affable man. And while this situation suggests that perhaps there should be some rules to prevent someone who held a formal role in the government from occupying the Speaker's Chair during that same Parliament, at present, there aren't. Mr. Fergus is occupying the Speaker's chair by virtue of his legal election to it. So, out of respect for the Office of the Speaker and its essential function within the institution of Parliament, I am honour-bound to afford him the respect he deserves in the role of Speaker. 

However, for the same reasons, he is also bound to respect the office of the Speaker as well, specifically, in determining what will be done with matters of privilege that involve his actions as a government appointee. This is a matter that affects the privilege of all Members. The Speaker’s rulings set precedent: it could be a breach of all Members’ privilege if he makes even one ruling for which he cannot conceivably be impartial due to the nature and actions of his previous government roles. Arguably, public opinion of the Speaker’s chair already took a grievous blow this month - confidence in the judgement of its office holder must now be protected more than ever before.

The Speaker has the ability to recuse himself by allowing the House to consider the matter at hand. In this instance, the correct course of action should be to allow the House to determine the outcome. Then the outcome would be a decision of the House, not the Speaker. If Speaker Fergus elected this course of action, he would demonstrate his commitment to upholding the impartiality of the Chair.

Representative democracy only functions when ordinary people have confidence that the institutions that uphold their representative's ability to make decisions on their behalf are working. Any issue that erodes that confidence should be rectified.

This afternoon, I raised a Question of Privilege in the House to raise my concerns about this matter (you can read the full text here, if you have a burning desire to review all of my technical arguments). Out of respect for Parliament, I hope Speaker Fergus takes careful consideration on the best course of action to ensure Canadians continue to have confidence in our democratic institutions. 

There's a lot at stake if he gets this wrong. But hope for Canada’s democratic institutions means hope in the Speaker must spring eternal.