Speaker of the House of Commons (Canada)

Speaker of the House of Commons
Président de la Chambre des communes (French)
Incumbent Anthony Rota since December 5, 2019
House of Commons of Canada
Style	The Honourable (while in office) Mr. Speaker (in the Commons)
Member of	Parliament
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
Salary	CA$269,800
Website	www.ourcommons.ca/speaker

The speaker of the House of Commons (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.

The 37th and current speaker of the House of Commons is Anthony Rota, since December 5, 2019. The speaker with the longest tenure is Peter Milliken who served four consecutive terms in 10 years, 124 days.

Role

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. He or she is to rule over the house and have the government answer questions during the question period as well as keep decorum with the house. The speaker receives a salary of CA$269,800 ($182,600 as an MP in addition to $87,200 as speaker) and has use of a small apartment, in the House of Commons, and an official residence, The Farm, an estate located at Kingsmere in Gatineau Park, Quebec, across the river from Ottawa.

The speaker is also responsible for the management of the House of Commons campus, and the 2,000 individuals who work there. In 2015 the speaker managed a budget of $414 million.

Along with the Senate speaker, the speaker of the House is responsible for the Parliamentary Protective Service, which provides security to Parliament Hill with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.

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 House of Commons of the United Kingdom, 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

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

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

While the Constitution requires that the speaker be elected by the House of Commons, traditionally this amounted to the rubber-stamp approval of an MP 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 speaker. 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). Scheer was the youngest Speaker in Canadian history.

On December 2, 2015, Geoff Regan was elected speaker by members of the 42nd Parliament over fellow Liberal candidates Denis Paradis, Yasmin Ratansi and Conservative Bruce Stanton. Regan won on the first ballot and is the first speaker from Atlantic Canada in nearly a hundred years since Nova Scotian Edgar Nelson Rhodes in 1922.

Anthony Rota was elected as 37th speaker on December 5, 2019, by winning a ranked ballot between himself, Joël Godin, Carol Hughes, Geoff Regan (the speaker during the previous Parliament), and Bruce Stanton. Following Rota's win, the Conservatives said that he had them to thank for his new election, after they decided in a Conservative caucus meeting to unseat Regan as a show of strength to the Liberal minority government. They did so by ranking Regan further down on the ranked ballot.

Opposition speakers

The speaker usually comes from among MPs of the governing party. But because he or she cannot vote unless his or her vote would break a tie and by convention must vote to maintain the status quo (which includes voting confidence in the government), a minority government can slightly weaken the opposition's power by electing an opposition speaker.

Speakers have been elected from opposition parties during the 1926 tenure of Arthur Meighen's Conservative ministry, the 1979 ministry of Progressive Conservative Joe Clark, and Stephen Harper's Conservative Ministry from 2006 to 2011. In the 39th Parliament, three opposition members, Peter Milliken, Diane Marleau and Marcel Proulx, ran for 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 New Democratic Party (NDP) – who declined. So far, every speaker from an opposition party has been a Liberal.

Impartiality

The speaker is required to perform his or her 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 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 no subsequent speakers have repeated 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, a reflection of Speaker Denison's rule practiced in the British House of Commons. 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 did so on five 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,) 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 current deputy speaker is Bruce Stanton (Conservative); and the assistant deputy speaker is Carol Hughes (NDP).

Retirement

Most former speakers retire from Parliament after their tenure as speaker, sometimes after returning to the backbench for a period. Several have been appointed to diplomatic positions, summoned to the Senate, or appointed to a vice-regal position such as lieutenant-governor of a province or, in two cases, governor general of Canada. While several former Cabinet ministers have served as speaker or stood for the position, no former speakers have subsequently been appointed to Cabinet. One speaker, Andrew Scheer, has gone on to assume a front bench position in the House of Commons: Scheer became leader of the Conservative Party of Canada in 2017 and has served as leader of the Opposition since 2017.

Honorary Speaker

On March 9, 2016 Liberal MP Mauril Bélanger served as honorary speaker for about an hour to honour his years of service. Speaker Regan resumed his duties for the remainder of the sitting of the House.

Mauril Bélanger was initially the front runner for the current role, but declined due to his being diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis. Bélanger died on August 15, 2016, five months after being named honorary speaker.

Counterparts

The speaker's counterpart in the upper house is the speaker of the Senate of Canada. 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

Key:

  Liberal Party of Canada

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

  Conservative Party of Canada

Speaker		Tenure		Parliament(s)	Term length	Party	Riding
1	James Cockburn	November 6, 1867	March 5, 1874	1st, 2nd	6 years, 99 days	Conservative	Northumberland West
2	Timothy Warren Anglin	March 26, 1874	February 12, 1879	3rd	4 years, 323 days	Liberal	Gloucester
3	Joseph Godéric Blanchet	February 13, 1879	February 7, 1883	4th	3 years, 359 days	Liberal-Conservative	Lévis
4	George Airey Kirkpatrick	February 8, 1883	July 12, 1887	5th, 6th	4 years, 154 days	Conservative	Frontenac
5	Joseph-Aldéric Ouimet	July 13, 1887	July 28, 1891	6th, 7th	4 years, 15 days	Liberal-Conservative	Laval
6	Peter White	July 29, 1891	August 18, 1896	7th	5 years, 21 days	Conservative	Renfrew North
7	James David Edgar	August 19, 1896	July 31, 1899	8th	2 years, 346 days	Liberal	Ontario West
8	Thomas Bain	August 1, 1899	February 5, 1901	8th	1 year, 188 days	Liberal	Wentworth South
9	Louis Philippe Brodeur	February 6, 1901	January 18, 1904	9th	2 years, 346 days	Liberal	Rouville
10	Napoléon Antoine Belcourt	March 10, 1904	January 10, 1905	9th	306 days	Liberal	Ottawa (City of)
11	Robert Franklin Sutherland	January 11, 1905	January 19, 1909	10th	4 years, 0 days	Liberal	Essex North
12	Charles Marcil	January 20, 1909	November 14, 1911	11th	2 years, 298 days	Liberal	Bonaventure
13	Thomas Simpson Sproule	November 15, 1911	December 2, 1915	12th	4 years, 17 days	Conservative	Grey East
14	Albert Sévigny	January 12, 1916	January 7, 1917	12th	361 days	Conservative	Dorchester
15	Edgar Nelson Rhodes	January 18, 1917	March 5, 1922	12th, 13th	5 years, 46 days	Conservative	Cumberland
16	Rodolphe Lemieux	March 8, 1922	June 2, 1930	14th, 15th, 16th	8 years, 86 days	Liberal	Gaspé
17	George Black	September 8, 1930	January 16, 1935	17th	4 years, 130 days	Conservative	Yukon
18	James Langstaff Bowman	January 17, 1935	February 5, 1936	17th	1 year, 19 days	Conservative	Dauphin
19	Pierre-François Casgrain	February 6, 1936	May 10, 1940	18th	4 years, 94 days	Liberal	Charlevoix-Saguenay
20	James Allison Glen	May 16, 1940	September 5, 1945	19th	5 years, 112 days	Liberal	Marquette
21	Gaspard Fauteux	September 6, 1945	September 14, 1949	20th	4 years, 69 days	Liberal	St. Mary
22	William Ross Macdonald	September 15, 1949	June 11, 1953	21st	3 years, 269 days	Liberal	Brantford
23	Louis-René Beaudoin	November 12, 1953	October 13, 1957	22nd	3 years, 335 days	Liberal	Vaudreuil-Soulanges
24	Roland Michener	October 14, 1957	September 26, 1962	23rd, 24th	4 years, 347 days	Progressive Conservative	St. Paul's
25	Marcel Lambert	September 27, 1962	May 15, 1963	25th	230 days	Progressive Conservative	Edmonton West
26	Alan Macnaughton	May 16, 1963	January 17, 1966	26th	2 years, 246 days	Liberal	Mount Royal
27	Lucien Lamoureux	January 18, 1966	September 29, 1974	27th	8 years, 253 days	Liberal	Stormont-Dundas
27				28th, 29th		Independent
28	James Jerome	September 30, 1974	December 14, 1979	30th, 31st	5 years, 75 days	Liberal	Sudbury
29	Jeanne Sauvé	April 14, 1980	January 15, 1984	32nd	3 years, 276 days	Liberal	Laval-des-Rapides
30	Lloyd Francis	January 16, 1984	November 4, 1984	32nd	293 days	Liberal	Ottawa West
31	John Bosley	November 5, 1984	September 29, 1986	33rd	1 year, 328 days	Progressive Conservative	Don Valley West
32	John Allen Fraser	September 30, 1986	January 16, 1994	33rd, 34th	7 years, 108 days	Progressive Conservative	Vancouver South
33	Gilbert Parent	January 17, 1994	January 28, 2001	35th, 36th	7 years, 11 days	Liberal	Welland—St. Catharines—Thorold Niagara Centre
34	Peter Milliken	January 29, 2001	June 2, 2011	37th, 38th, 39th, 40th	10 years, 124 days	Liberal	Kingston and the Islands
35	Andrew Scheer	June 2, 2011	December 2, 2015	41st	4 years, 183 days	Conservative	Regina—Qu'Appelle
36	Geoff Regan	December 3, 2015	December 5, 2019	42nd	4 years, 2 days	Liberal	Halifax West
37	Anthony Rota	December 5, 2019	Present	43rd	4 years, 161 days	Liberal	Nipissing—Timiskaming

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.