Speaker of the House of Commons (Canada)

Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada
File:SpeakerScheer.jpg Incumbent Andrew Scheer since 2 June 2011
Style	The Honourable Mr/Madam Speaker (In the House)
Residence	The Farm
Appointer	Elected by the members of the House of Commons
Term length	Elected at the start of each Parliament
Inaugural holder	James Cockburn

Canada

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The Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada (French: Président de la Chambre des communes) is the presiding officer of the lower house of the Parliament of Canada and is elected at the beginning of each new parliament by fellow Members of Parliament (MPs). The Speaker's role in presiding over Canada's House of Commons is similar to that of speakers elsewhere in other countries that use the Westminster system (see Speaker of the House of Commons). The current Speaker is Andrew Scheer.

Purpose

The chamber of the House of Commons; the Speaker's chair is front and centre in the room.

In Canada it is the Speaker's responsibility to manage the House of Commons and supervise its staff. It is also the Speaker's duty to act as a liaison with the Senate and the Crown. The Speaker of the House of Commons receives a salary of about $230,000 CAD and has use of the official residence, The Farm, an estate located at Kingsmere in Gatineau Park, Quebec, across the river from Ottawa.

The term "Speaker" originates from the British parliamentary tradition. The French term now used in Canada is Président (president, chairperson, or presiding officer); the term Orateur, a calque (literal translation) of "Speaker" and formerly the term used in France for the Speaker of the British House of Commons, was used until a few decades ago. By convention, Speakers are normally addressed in Parliament as "Mister Speaker", for a male, and "Madame Speaker", for a female.

Election

While the Constitution requires that the Speaker be elected by the House of Commons, traditionally this amounted to the rubber-stamp approval of a Member nominated by the Prime Minister. However, in 1986 this was changed and they are now selected by secret ballot. The Speaker remains a sitting MP, but only votes on matters in the case of a tie.

All MPs except for Cabinet ministers and party leaders are eligible to run for the Speakership. Any MP who does not wish to put his or her name forward must issue a letter withdrawing from the ballot by the day before the vote. All MPs who do not remove their name from the ballot as of 6pm the day before the election are listed as candidates on the ballot and are allowed a five minute speech to persuade their colleagues as to why they should be elected.

The election is presided over by the Dean of the House, currently Louis Plamondon, who is the longest continuously serving MP who is not in Cabinet.

All candidates who receive less than 5% of the vote are removed from the ballot. If no candidate received less than 5% of the vote then the MP with the fewest vote drops off. This continues, with a one hour break between ballots, until one candidate receives more than 50% of the vote. In the event of a tie on the final ballot, the ballot is taken again. This happened once, in 1993, when Gilbert Parent won over Jean-Robert Gauthier.

The winner is escorted to the Speaker's chair by the Prime Minister and Leader of the Official Opposition. The newly elected Speaker, by tradition, feigns reluctance as he or she is "dragged" to the chair in a practice dating from the days when British Speakers risked execution if the news they reported to the King was displeasing.

On June 2, 2011, Conservative Andrew Scheer (Regina-Qu'Appelle) was elected Speaker, defeating the following MPs over the course of six ballots: New Democrat Denise Savoie (Victoria (electoral district)) and Conservatives Dean Allison (Niagara West—Glanbrook), Barry Devolin (Haliburton—Kawartha Lakes—Brock), Ed Holder (London West), Lee Richardson (Calgary Centre), Bruce Stanton (Simcoe North), and Merv Tweed (Brandon-Souris).

Opposition Speakers

The Speaker, according to the constitution, cannot vote unless his or her vote would break a tie, in which case convention dictates that he or she must vote so as to maintain the status quo, which includes voting confidence in the government. Because of this, the minority government can slightly weaken the opposition's power by electing an opposition speaker.

In 1957, when John George Diefenbaker took power with a minority Progressive Conservative government, he offered the Speaker's chair to Stanley Knowles of the opposition Co-operative Commonwealth Federation (the precursor to the NDP), who declined the appointment. During the 1926 tenure of Arthur Meighen's Conservative ministry, during the 1979 ministry of Progressive Conservative Joe Clark. In the 39th Parliament of Conservative Stephen Harper, three opposition members, Peter Milliken, Diane Marleau and Marcel Proulx, ran for Speaker with Milliken winning. So far, every Speaker from an opposition party has been a Liberal.

Impartiality

The Speaker is required to perform his office impartially, but does not resign from his or her party membership upon taking office, as is done in the United Kingdom. Speaker Lucien Lamoureux decided to follow the custom of the Speaker of the British House of Commons and ran in the 1968 election as an independent. Both the Liberal Party and the Progressive Conservative Party agreed not to run candidates against him. The New Democratic Party, however, declined to withdraw their candidate. Lamoureux was re-elected and continued to serve as Speaker. However, in the 1972 election, the opposition parties did not come to an agreement and ran candidates against him. Lamoureux was again returned but future Speakers would not repeat his attempt to run as an independent. The opposition parties may have chosen not to follow the 1968 precedent because of how close the election was: it produced a Liberal minority government with just two more seats than the Conservatives.

Tie-breaking votes

On May 19, 2005, the Speaker was required to cast the tie-breaking vote during a confidence measure for the first time in Canadian history. Faced with the defeat of Paul Martin's minority government, Milliken voted in favour of the NDP budget amendment. Despite popular belief that the Speaker, as a Liberal MP, would automatically support the government, his vote was pre-determined by other factors. As Speaker, Milliken's vote must be cast to allow the continuation of debate, or to maintain the status quo. Thus, the Speaker voted in favour of second reading, "to allow the House time for further debate so that it can make its own decision at some future time." The bill would later pass third reading without the need for Milliken's vote.

Speakers have only needed to vote in order to break a tie 11 times in Canadian parliamentary history. Milliken has done so on 6 occasions, more than all previous Speakers combined.

Deputy Speaker

In addition to the Speaker, a Deputy Speaker, also known as the Chair of Committees of the Whole or "Chair of Committees", is elected at the beginning of each parliament to act in place of the Speaker when the latter is unavailable. Under the Standing Orders, the Speaker, after consulting with each of the party leaders, nominates a candidate for Deputy Speaker to the House, which then votes on that nomination. The Deputy Speaker presides over daily sessions of the House when the Speaker is not in the chair. The Deputy Speaker also chairs the House when it sits as a Committee of the Whole. Other presiding officers, the Deputy Chair of Committees and the Assistant Deputy Chair of Committees, are chosen each session to occupy the chair when the Speaker and Deputy Speaker are not available. The Deputy speaker and the other presiding officers are members of the Panel of Chairs, and can therefore be selected by the Speaker to chair legislative committees. Like the Speaker, the Deputy Speaker has a role in administering the House.

The Deputy Speaker for the 41st Parliament is Denise Savoie (NDP), and the other two presiding officers for the first session are Deputy Chair Barry Devolin (Conservative) and Assistant Deputy Chair Bruce Stanton (Conservative).

Counterparts

The Speaker's counterpart in the upper house is the Speaker of the Canadian Senate. Canadian provincial and territorial legislatures also have Speakers with much the same roles. The position was preceded by the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of Canada.

List of Speakers of the House of Commons

Plaque at the western entrance of the Centre Block of Parliament Hill.

Key:

  Liberal Party of Canada

  Historical conservative parties: Liberal-Conservative, Conservative (historical), Unionist, National Liberal and Conservative, Progressive Conservative

  Conservative Party of Canada

Speaker		Tenure		Party
	James Cockburn	November 6, 1867	March 5, 1874	Conservative
	Timothy Warren Anglin	March 26, 1874	February 12, 1879	Liberal
	Joseph Godéric Blanchet	February 13, 1879	February 7, 1883	Liberal-Conservative
	George Airey Kirkpatrick	February 8, 1883	July 12, 1887	Conservative
	Joseph-Aldéric Ouimet	July 13, 1887	July 28, 1891	Liberal-Conservative
	Peter White	July 29, 1891	August 18, 1896	Conservative
	James David Edgar	August 19, 1896	July 31, 1899	Liberal
	Thomas Bain	August 1, 1899	February 5, 1901	Liberal
	Louis Philippe Brodeur	February 6, 1901	January 18, 1904	Liberal
	Napoléon Antoine Belcourt	March 10, 1904	January 10, 1905	Liberal
	Robert Franklin Sutherland	January 11, 1905	January 19, 1909	Liberal
	Charles Marcil	January 20, 1909	November 14, 1911	Liberal
	Thomas Simpson Sproule	November 15, 1911	December 2, 1915	Conservative
	Albert Sévigny	January 12, 1916	January 7, 1917	Conservative
	Edgar Nelson Rhodes	January 18, 1917	March 5, 1922	Conservative
	Rodolphe Lemieux	March 8, 1922	June 2, 1930	Liberal
	George Black	September 8, 1930	January 16, 1935	Conservative
	James Langstaff Bowman	January 17, 1935	February 5, 1936	Conservative
	Pierre-François Casgrain	February 6, 1936	May 10, 1940	Liberal
	James Allison Glen	May 16, 1940	September 5, 1945	Liberal
	Gaspard Fauteux	September 6, 1945	September 14, 1949	Liberal
	William Ross Macdonald	September 15, 1949	June 11, 1953	Liberal
	Louis-René Beaudoin	November 12, 1953	October 13, 1957	Liberal
	Roland Michener	October 14, 1957	September 26, 1962	Progressive Conservative
	Marcel Lambert	September 27, 1962	May 15, 1963	Progressive Conservative
	Alan Macnaughton	May 16, 1963	January 17, 1966	Liberal
	Lucien Lamoureux	January 18, 1966	September 29, 1974	Liberal/Independent++
	James Alexander Jerome	September 30, 1974	December 14, 1979	Liberal
	Jeanne Sauvé	April 14, 1980	January 15, 1984	Liberal
	Cyril Lloyd Francis	January 16, 1984	November 4, 1984	Liberal
	John William Bosley	November 5, 1984	September 29, 1986	Progressive Conservative
	John Allen Fraser	September 30, 1986	January 16, 1994	Progressive Conservative
	Gilbert Parent	January 17, 1994	January 28, 2001	Liberal
	Peter Milliken	January 29, 2001	June 2, 2011	Liberal
	Andrew Scheer	June 2, 2011	Incumbent	Conservative

++Lamoureaux emulated the tradition of the Speaker of the British House of Commons and ran for re-election as an Independent MP in the 1968 and 1972 general elections.

External links

• Parliamentary Library of Canada - contains biographies of all of Canada's speakers and information on the historical development and current role of the position.