PROC Committee Report

THE SPEAKER MUST RESIGN FOR HIS BLATANT AND PUBLIC PARTISANSHIP

DISSENTING OPINIONS OF THE OFFICIAL OPPOSITION

The office of Speaker of the House of Commons is one of the oldest in our constitutional form of government, dating back seven centuries.  For most of those centuries, it has been a non-partisan, impartial position within the House.

The current Speaker of our House, Greg Fergus, shattered that ancient tradition—three times in a week—earlier this month.

In doing so, he failed to meet his duty of care to the House, thereby squandering the good-will and trust of the Official Opposition.  Compounding that, the evidence before the Committee undermined the Speaker’s version of events.  All told, his judgment is questionable.

To repair the tear in the fabric of our democratic institution, the Speaker must resign.  The recommendations offered, instead, by the NDP-Liberal majority on the Procedure and House Affairs Committee are weak and meaningless.

The Speaker failed to meet his duty of care with his multiple partisan activities

Canada’s leading authority on parliamentary procedure sums up the expectation of Speakers:

When in the Chair, the Speaker embodies the power and authority of the office, strengthened by rule and precedent.  He or she must at all times show, and be seen to show, the impartiality required to sustain the trust and goodwill of the House….

In order to protect the impartiality of the office, the Speaker abstains from all partisan political activity (for example, by not attending caucus meetings), does not participate in debate and votes only in the event of an equality of voices, normally referred to as the “casting vote” of the Chair.[1]

Between December 1 and 5, 2023, Mr. Fergus was publicly associated with partisan activities three times.

On the afternoon of December 1, 2023, he undertook an interview with Laura Stone of the The Globe and Mail,[2] in which he paid tribute to outgoing Ontario Liberal Party Interim Leader John Fraser in glowing terms while referring to Mr. Fraser’s work on behalf of “our party”.  This interview was published on the Globe’s website that night and appeared in the next morning’s edition of the newspaper.[3]

Then, on the afternoon of December 2, 2023, at the Ontario Liberal Party’s leadership election “event”, during a segment paying tribute to Mr. Fraser, a two-minute video was shown of Mr. Fergus making a partisan tribute to his partisan friend while standing in his non-partisan office, wearing his non-partisan robes of office, and describing himself by his non-partisan title.  To make matters worse, the video was introduced as “A Message from … the Speaker, House of Commons of Canada”. In his remarks, Mr. Fergus said,

And boy, did we have fun.  We had a lot of fun together ... through the Ottawa South Liberal Association, through Liberal Party politics, by helping Dalton McGuinty get elected.  This was really a seminal part of my life.  And when I think of the opportunities that I have now as being Speaker of the House of Commons, it’s because of people like John.[4]

As we heard at the Committee, Eric Janse, the Speaker’s top professional procedural advisor, as Acting Clerk of the House, would have advised against recording this video.  That comment is no doubt a reflection of professional, diplomatic understatement.

Finally, on the evening of December 5, 2023, while on an “official” international trip as Speaker, Mr. Fergus attended a reception for his long-time friend Claus Gramckow, retiring from the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, a foundation closely affiliated with the Liberal Party of Canada’s sister party in Germany.[5]  In his comments, made before several senior members of the Liberals’ German counterpart,[6] Mr. Fergus relived his heydays as head of the Liberals’ national youth wing:

I’ll do a quick calculation, 29 years ago, that I first met Claus, 1994.  I was running for President of the Young Liberals of Canada.  And there was this guy who knew all these young Liberals, but I’d never seen him in the party before.  He spoke with this accent, you know?  I wasn’t certain where this was coming from.  And I remember one time he pulled me over and said, “Greg!”  So I go; he’s behind the curtains in the back of the room.  He says, “Greg, you’re going to win!”[7]

Mr. Janse, again, in his understated way, would not have recommended that Mr. Fergus make those remarks during his trip.

The House unanimously agreed, on December 6, 2023, in referring this matter to our Committee, that Mr. Fergus’s video represented “a breach of the tradition and expectation of impartiality required for that high office, constituting a serious error of judgment which undermines the trust required to discharge his duties and responsibilities”.[8]

What we had before us certainly did not detract from that view.  In fact, compounded by the Globe and Mail interview and the subsequent Washington reception, Mr. Fergus blatantly disregarded his duty of care to the House of Commons as its Speaker by repeatedly engaging in partisan conduct.

The Speaker’s story was undermined by the evidence before us

Mr. Fergus claimed that he had understood the tribute video would be shown at an “intimate gathering” in honour of a retiring friend.  Regrettably, the evidence before us calls his understanding into question.

Firstly, the interview with The Globe and Mail, praising Mr. Fraser’s service to “our party”, is at direct odds with the idea that Mr. Fergus only ever intended to pay a private tribute.  No one with as much experience in political life as he would be naïve to think that an interview in a national newspaper would go unnoticed.  It is difficult for us to reconcile the making of one unquestionably public tribute with the claims that the other was never meant to be seen publicly.

Secondly, Mr. Fraser is not retiring, but merely stepping back as Interim Leader of the Ontario Liberal Party.  Indeed, since the Party elected a new leader without a seat in the provincial legislature, Mr. Fraser is continuing as the parliamentary leader of the Ontario Liberals.  Moreover, Mr. Fraser confirmed that, “God willing,” he would be seeking re-election as a Member of Provincial Parliament in the next Ontario election, expected in 2026.  In effect, Mr. Fergus made an endorsement video for a future candidate for partisan elected office while wearing his non-partisan robes in his non-partisan office.

Thirdly, the Committee heard that Mr. Fergus had not consulted his Chief of Staff, Tommy Desfossés; yet, Mr. Fraser testified that his spouse, Linda Hooper, had contacted Mr. Desfossés to make the request for the tribute video.  Perhaps Mr. Fergus did not have the presence of mind to ask Mr. Desfossés about the appropriateness of the video, but it would be misleading to suggest Mr. Desfossés was entirely absent from communications about it.  Mr. Desfossés is, of course, well known on Parliament Hill from his nine years of service as a senior aide and close associate of Justin Trudeau’s during the ascendant years of Mr. Trudeau’s career,[9] a politician well known for prioritizing style over substance.

Fourthly, Mr. Fraser explained that the request for Mr. Fergus to make the video tribute was always meant to be as part of the Ontario Liberal Party’s tribute to the outgoing leader, a customary feature of most parties’ leadership conventions or events, though he admitted he “can’t speak to how it was communicated within Mr. Fergus’s office”.  Though the e-mails deposited with the Committee show that—hours following the video’s public airing—Mr. Desfossés told Mr. Janse that the video was meant for “a private dinner to thsbk [sic] John”,[10] Mr. Fraser agreed in Committee questioning that this tribute was “always going to be livesteamed … always going to be a very, very public event.”

According to Mr. Fraser, the miscommunication was that Ms. Hooper had suggested to Mr. Desfossés that the video would be used on Friday, December 1, not Saturday, December 2; indeed, there had never been any tribute event, private or otherwise, planned for that Friday.

In our view, Mr. Fraser’s evidence before the Committee was candid, plausible and not self-serving.  Further, we note that Ms. Hooper is not an amateur to politics, being a veteran Liberal staffer on Parliament Hill,[11] which adds to the credibility of Mr. Fraser’s comment that Ms. Hooper may have innocently erred, relying on her decades of political experience, in suggesting that the tribute would be the night before the result announcement—a common practice in the days of delegated leadership conventions.  Moreover, her professional political experience suggests to us that she would have been sufficiently clear in communicating the purpose of the tribute video.  Indeed, her experience and connections also clarify for us why she did not call her close friend of 34 years, but instead called Mr. Fergus’s staffer of about five weeks’ tenure.

Since no other evidence (such as appearances by Mr. Desfossés or Ms. Hooper, or documents from the Ontario Liberal Party) was available to the Committee to corroborate Mr. Fergus’s “understanding” of the request, we can only make negative inferences against his claims, particularly where they contradict the evidence of Mr. Fraser.

In sum, we have serious doubts about the accuracy of Mr. Fergus’s evidence to the Committee.

The Speaker’s judgment cannot be trusted

As the House unanimously agreed last week, Mr. Fergus’s tribute video demonstrated a “serious error of judgment”.  Indeed, the sequence of events from December 1 to 5, 2023, revealed a pattern of poor judgment on Mr. Fergus’s part.

Adding to the pattern of poor judgment regarding the inappropriateness of partisan engagements as Speaker, Mr. Fergus persisted in pursuing his trip to Washington—scheduled for the middle of a sitting week, a questionable choice itself—while a crisis of confidence in his Speakership was fully aflame in Ottawa.  Indeed, as we learnt, it was really just a personal trip to go to a party celebrating another long-time friend from liberal politics with some events tacked on to justify calling it (and expensing it as) “official” Speaker travel.

While Mr. Fergus suggested to our Committee that he contemplated cancelling the Washington trip, another interview he gave to The Globe and Mail—this time on December 4, 2023, hours before leaving the country—suggests it was not a serious reflection, given his flippant, almost patronizing comment dismissing the controversy which was, by then, raging in the Commons as “the members are upset”.[12]

Conservatives had some skepticism about Mr. Fergus’s ability to be an impartial Speaker, given his hyper-partisan career, including time spent as President of the Young Liberals of Canada, National Director of the Liberal Party of Canada, staffer to senior Liberal federal cabinet ministers, and Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, among other positions.  Mr. Fergus’s repeated displays of partisanship, with the attendant lack of judgment related to them, confirm for us that our concerns were well-placed.

The Speaker of the House of Commons is called upon to make very important decisions, often where serious democratic interests are at stake, requiring tact, awareness and judgment.  If we cannot rely on the Speaker to have the judgment or self-awareness on basic matters, what faith can we have in his rulings in the House?

The majority’s recommendations are weak and meaningless

When the House unanimously asked our Committee to recommend an appropriate remedy, it cast Mr. Fergus’s conduct in very unflattering terms implying a most serious matter requiring equally serious consequences.

The NDP-Liberal majority on the Committee have, instead, defied the will of the House by agreeing to report back recommendations which, in their totality, amount to a slap on the wrist at its most generous interpretation.

Firstly, the recommendation to reimburse “a suitable amount” for the parliamentary resources used is a matter the Board of Internal Economy is already seized with, entirely independently of this Committee’s work, following the letter of complaint to the Board from our caucus colleague James Bezan.[13]  In analogous situations, the Board has approached the question by seeking reimbursement of an amount representing the fair market value of the resources used, not by imposing a punitive fine.[14]

We note that our New Democratic committee colleague Peter Julian claimed he would seek a “financial penalty” for Mr. Fergus,[15] but the House of Commons, when exercising its contempt jurisdiction, has no authority to impose a fine.[16]  If a mere reimbursement to taxpayers of the resources used constitutes a “penalty”, then his understanding of consequences and appropriate remedies is a joke. 

Regardless, even if there was authority to impose a fine, no amount of money could restore the trust and good-will required for Mr. Fergus to be able to do his job.  Perhaps in the NDP-Liberal coalition’s Ottawa, you can simply purchase trust and confidence, but regular, hard-working Canadians know that trust must be earned.

Secondly, the recommendation for an apology is meaningless.  Mr. Fergus offered apologetic words to the House on December 4, 2023, pledging to do better,[17] then he jetted off to Washington where he gave another set of partisan remarks.  What good would another apology be when there is an established track record of poor judgment which is likely, over time, to recur?

Thirdly, the recommendation for Clerks to provide Speakers with “guidelines” on partisanship is simply sad.  While we recognize and understand Mr. Janse’s commitment to “beef up” the briefing materials available, non-partisanship is really the most basic, golden rule of the Speakership in our parliamentary system.  Anyone aspiring to be the First Commoner really should understand that basic expectation of the job before seeking the office.  To us, this recommendation is as patronizing as if the Committee also recommended that Speakers should know the rules by reading the Standing Orders and our procedural authorities, like House of Commons Procedure and Practice.

If a Speaker requires a dedicated briefing on impartiality and non-partisanship in order to discharge that simple, basic and ancient responsibility of the position, then he or she, quite frankly, has no business holding the office.

Put simply, more serious remedies are necessary to repair the damage done by the blatant pattern of partisanship by Mr. Fergus.

It is, therefore, with no pleasure, but in the best interests of the institutions of Parliament, that the Official Opposition expresses its lost confidence in Greg Fergus as Speaker of the House of Commons and asks that he resign the office immediately.