Speaker Fergus recuses himself from major ruling, doesn't tell House, but tells Twitter/X account with 94 followers instead
Speaker Greg Fergus just recused himself from decision due to potential conflict of interest, but failed to tell the House of Commons before telling Twitter/X account holder.
Friday night always seems to be when crazy things happen, with tonight being no exception.
However, what happened tonight, while crazy, isn’t a joking matter. What I’m about to tell you involves the most serious functions of Canada’s democracy.
Here’s what just happened.
1.) Newly elected Speaker of the House of Commons Greg Fergus (the person who just replaced the former Speaker who honoured a Nazi in the House of Commons), just decided to recuse himself on a Question of Privilege that I raised yesterday, over misleading information he signed off on in a previous role regarding the cost of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s ski vacation to Montana. (You can read the whole backstory on this here). This isn’t the sort of thing that screams to the world that Canada has gotten its act together after the Nazi incident. Not great, to put it mildly.
2.) Even though Speaker Fergus determined that he needs to recuse himself from the matter, he didn’t refer the matter to the House (to which he reports), but to a subordinate instead. It doesn’t take an expert in Parliamentary procedure to know that’s not how recusals work. Also not great.
3.) It also appears Speaker Fergus made this decision, but forgot to tell the House of Commons. Instead, his office reportedly told the account holder of a Twitter/X account with 94 followers, who appears to be - but I can’t confirm - a teenager. Releasing this info to the public before the House is a big no-no, from both an official procedural and frankly, common sense, perspective. Really, really, not great.
4.) It’s not clear if the position he previously held with the government was relinquished prior to all of this going down.
Why does any of this matter, you ask?
Well, after the Nazi incident, the world suddenly has a keen interest in whether or not Canada’s Parliament has its act together. And that type of scrutiny is mucho, extra not great for Canada’s reputation on the world stage. So Canada can’t afford any more screw ups happening from its government or its Speaker.
Enter this situation.
These sort of issues have the potential ability to further derail the function of Parliament, at a time when the country is facing multiple challenges. Parliamentary rules are in place for a reason. What happens in Parliament affects the lives of millions of people, and these rules are not being taken seriously.
In that context, I formally wrote to the Speaker, and the House Leaders of all political parties to bring their attention to these matters. Since the Speaker apparently decided to break this story on social media, it's only fair that a copy of my response should be posted for the public to see, too.
The receipts for everything outlined above is included in my response to Speaker Fergus, below. I encourage you to read all of it, so you can get a sense of the true gravity of the situation and the problems it presents to Parliament.
Much love, MRG.
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October 6, 2023
The Honourable Greg Fergus, P.C., M.P.
Speaker of the House of Commons
West Block
House of Commons
Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A6
Dear Mr. Speaker:
Let me begin by emphasizing I have deep respect for the office that you occupy, and for Parliamentary procedure. Every point contained herein is made out of a desire to uphold the rules of Parliament and to bolster public faith in Canada’s democratic institutions.
I am writing to acknowledge receipt of your email which you sent to me at 3:19 pm this afternoon. This email confirms that you have recused yourself from the question of privilege which I raised in the House of Commons yesterday, in acknowledgement of a potential conflict of interest on your part.
However, your response, and subsequent events, raise additional issues.
I will begin with my most substantive concern.
To recap the matter at the heart of my question of privilege, my colleague Luc Berthold asked these two Order Paper Questions concerning taxpayer-funded expenses associated with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s vacation. To learn that over $200,000 of expenses were omitted from the responses—one of which was under your signature, no less—parliamentarians were ill-informed for being able to consider or debate this properly, to the point of being misled. Though no one denies the necessity for the Prime Minister to have adequate security, that does not change the constitutional reality that Parliament holds the “power of the purse” and that the government is accountable to Parliament for its actions and its expenditures.
In that, I disagree with the approach you suggested in your email, which I am not clear whether it is as official as a ruling delivered in the House. Simply put, it would be improper for you to delegate responsibility for handling this question of privilege to the Deputy Speaker.
This is because, in your email, you have stated that you decided to recuse yourself - again, due to a potential conflict. Since you have come to this conclusion, the final decision should not rest with your office or subordinates. When judges recuse themselves in court, a peer judge assumes carriage of the matter, not one of his or her assistants.
The Speaker, of course, has no peer, being the First Commoner. However, you do answer to the House. That is why I argued in the House that the proper course of action in these extraordinary circumstances would be for you to defer the decision to the House. I maintain this position.
As you know, the role of the Speaker is not to decide where a breach of privilege or a contempt have been committed. It is, instead, a filtering role, described at page 142 of House of Commons Procedure and Practice (third edition) as “limited to deciding whether the matter is of such a character as to entitle the Member who has raised the question to move a motion which will have priority over Orders of the Day; that is, in the Speaker’s opinion, there is a prima facie question of privilege.”
Bosc and Gagnon, at page 1311, note that this approach to our procedure, which was adopted in 1958 from the then-prevailing British practice, “soon became a handy reference seized upon by successive Speakers, beginning with Speaker Michener, as a way to curtail spurious interventions by Members on non-privilege matters.”
I think all would agree that the matters which I raised in the House are neither “spurious” nor “non-privilege”. Therefore, in these circumstances, there is, ultimately, no filtering role required; but, in any event, it is one which the House can play in its deliberations on a privilege motion.
Now, onto other matters.
First, can you confirm the capacity in which you wrote to me? The signature block on your email identifies yourself as “Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Treasury Board'' and “Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health.” I will assume that the signature block was simply an oversight during a busy week and that your Parliamentary Secretary appointment had been formally terminated prior to you occupying the Speaker’s chair, but confirmation would be appreciated.
Second, this afternoon at 3:39pm a Twitter/X account with the handle “@nolanstoqua” tweeted that you had recused yourself from the decision process. At 4:37pm, the same account published a link to a Substack article claiming that your office had informed them of your decision.
I will note that this Twitter/X account has 94 followers, links to a Substack that was created approximately a month ago, and appears to be run by a teenaged boy. However, since I cannot independently verify who actually runs any of these accounts, I admit I cannot be sure. I would like to know how you or your staff made that determination prior to disclosing your first decision as Speaker of the House of Commons, and one that pertained to a matter that I raised, in a potentially procedurally flawed way, given that it has been established to be a contempt of Parliament when certain information about House business is not provided to the House first.
In any event, this circumstance begs the following questions. Why, if you made the decision to recuse yourself this morning, did you choose to forgo informing the House of Commons of your decision while it was sitting, and instead decided to discuss it with the holder of several unverified social media accounts? Also, did you inform this person of your decision prior to sending me an email? And, why did you send me an email, instead of publicly informing the House as per usual procedure?
Additionally, because you informed a member of the public regarding a matter which I raised publicly on the floor of the House for the purposes of seeking a public ruling, and this matter is now public due to that person’s transmission of the information onto social media, and this is a matter on which colleagues from other political parties publicly stated their intentions to make interventions, I am replying to you by way of a public letter, to ensure that the principles of natural justice can be best preserved under these circumstances.
In closing, I am providing copies of this letter to House leaders of the recognized parties, to ensure that they are acquainted with this highly irregular manner of the Speaker addressing a question of privilege.
Again, I hold deep respect for the officer of the Speaker, and for the institution of Parliament and it is out of that respect that I make these requests.
Sincerely,
Hon. Michelle Rempel Garner, P.C., M.P.
c.c.
Hon. Karina Gould, P.C., M.P.
Hon. Andrew Scheer, P.C., M.P.
Mr. Alain Therrien, M.P.
Mr. Peter Julian, M.P.
Ms. Elizabeth May, M.P.