The federal Conservatives want speaker Greg Fergus to immediately resign or be fired by a parliamentary vote after the Conservatives charged that he was found guilty of Liberal partisanship. Conservatives had moved a motion after Deputy Speaker Chris d’Entremont ruled that the use of partisan language in the ad promoting a Liberal Party event with Fergus amounted to a prima facie question of MPs’ privilege. The Conservatives took the ruling on Monday and charged that it confirmed what they have been saying and have known for months: that Greg Fergus is a partisan speaker who is using the Chair to benefit the Liberal Party of Canada. “Greg Fergus must resign. The House of Commons cannot function without a non-partisan Speaker,” the Conservative Party said in a news release. “If Greg Fergus refuses to resign after this ruling, then the NDP must vote with Conservatives to remove Greg Fergus from the Chair. It’s time for the NDP to stop protecting Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Speaker. Only then can we restore impartiality to the Speaker’s Office.”
By R. Paul Dhillon – Editor DESIBUZZCanada
OTTAWA – The federal Conservatives want speaker Greg Fergus to immediately resign or be fired by a parliamentary vote after the Conservatives charged that he was found guilty of Liberal partisanship.
Conservatives had moved a motion after Deputy Speaker Chris d’Entremont ruled that the use of partisan language in the ad promoting a Liberal Party event with Fergus amounted to a prima facie question of MPs’ privilege.
The Conservatives took the ruling on Monday and charged that it confirmed what they have been saying and have known for months: that Greg Fergus is a partisan speaker who is using the Chair to benefit the Liberal Party of Canada.
“Greg Fergus must resign. The House of Commons cannot function without a non-partisan Speaker,” the Conservative Party said in a news release.
“If Greg Fergus refuses to resign after this ruling, then the NDP must vote with Conservatives to remove Greg Fergus from the Chair. It’s time for the NDP to stop protecting Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Speaker. Only then can we restore impartiality to the Speaker’s Office.”
Conservatives had charged that Fergus got caught holding a fundraiser for Justin Trudeau’s Liberal Party. Before they deleted it from their website, the Liberals wrote that they were organizing a “Summer Evening with the Honourable Greg Fergus.” The promotional material for this event included inflammatory partisan attacks about the Leader of the Official Opposition Pierre Poilievere, saying that he “proposes reckless policies that would risk our health, safety and pocketbooks.”
“This is unacceptable,” the news release said.
The Liberals and PM Trudeau had defended Fergus and said it was the Liberal party’s mistake and that Fergus had nothing to do with it and refused to have him step down from Speaker’s position which was also backed by their coalition partner the Jagmeet Singh led NDP.
Conservatives however said that this is the third time in just a few months that Fergus has failed his responsibility to be non-partisan.
“In the last few months, Fergus spoke at a cocktail fundraising dinner for a neighbouring Liberal, addressed the Ontario Liberal Party leadership convention in full Speaker garb, and jetted off to Washington at taxpayer expense to make a speech about his days as a member of the Young Liberals,” they said.
“This was also seen when he used the authority of his position to kick out the Leader of the Opposition while giving a free pass to the Prime Minister for using similar language.”
