(Ottawa) The day after the expulsion of Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre from question period, and while voices are being raised to demand the resignation of the Speaker of the House of Commons, Greg Fergus, he indicates that he has no intention of hanging up his toga.
Posted at 1:01 p.m.
Updated at 1:21 p.m.
“President Fergus has no intention of resigning,” said his spokesperson, Mathieu Gravel, in a brief statement on Wednesday.
This update comes the day after the ejection of official opposition leader Pierre Poilievre from question period in the House of Commons.
PHOTO ADRIAN WYLD, THE CANADIAN PRESS
Pierre Poilievre
He was kicked out of the arena after calling Justin Trudeau a “crazy” (wacko) and “extremist” and refused to clearly retract his comments.
The expulsion of a leader of the official opposition is an extremely rare, even historic event. According to the Library of Parliament, this is a first in the last 30 years.
Before being shown the door, he was accused by Justin Trudeau of having “shameful” and “malicious” leadership.
The deputies and ministers encountered in the corridors of parliament on Wednesday morning argued that there was no equivalence between the two.
Resignation requested
In the morning, the Conservative MPs who briefly paraded in front of journalists’ microphones demanded that Greg Fergus leave office.
“He should resign, his behavior was shameful,” said Michael Cooper, who had also been dismissed by the works referee during Tuesday’s stormy session.
The parliamentary leader of the Bloc Québécois, Alain Therrien, believes that the president is no longer able to ensure decorum in the House of Commons.
And the Bloc position remains: Greg Fergus should give up the presidential chair, he said Wednesday morning.
“We maintain our position,” he said in the press scrum.
Conservatives and Bloc members withdrew their confidence in the referee last December.
They accused him of having acted in a partisan manner by participating in the filming of a video for the outgoing interim leader of the Ontario Liberal Party, dressed in his presidential clothes.
The principal concerned admitted his wrongdoing and apologized.
The New Democrats, dancing partners of the Liberals, then defended Greg Fergus.
According to MP Alexandre Boulerice, it is Pierre Poilievre who is to blame, and not the president.
“I think that yesterday, the Speaker of the House applied the rules, gave enough chances, too, to the conservative deputies and the leader of the official opposition,” he argued in the press scrum.
Pierre Poilievre, for his part, “knew exactly what he was doing; It’s a kind of set-up where he wanted to appear like a victim and a martyr,” said MP Boulerice.
Parliamentarian or not, wacko ?
There is no list of index words in the House of Commons, contrary to what prevails in the National Assembly in Quebec.
It is up to the president of the institution to judge the parliamentary character of what is said in the chamber.
The word “crazy” (wacko) has already been used in debates in the House, notably by the New Democrat Peter Julian.
The chosen one justified himself on the X network: “I have never called anyone crazy. This would be unparliamentary. That’s what Poilievre did.”
The transcripts of the discussions in the Chamber prove him right.
