Lordy, lordy look who's 40! I tried that line as the lede on my piece in our papers today about the opening of the 40th Parliament of Canada but my editors sensibly decided it was a bit too cheezy.
In any event, here we are, perched in the press gallery in the House of Commons, just over the left the shoulder of the Dean of the House, Louis Plamondon. Plamondon is sitting in the Speaker's Chair this morning because he, as the aforementioned Dean of the House, gets to run the election for the Speaker. Plamondon, a Bloc Quebecois MP who was first elected as a Progressive Conservative in 1984 when support for les bleus like Plamondon swept Brian Mulroney to his first monster majority. Plamondon would cross the floor six years later to join Lucien Bouchard and the Bloc Quebecois and he's been there ever since.
But back to election of the speaker which I will be live-blogging.
MPs were required to tell the Clerk of the House by 6 pm last night that they did NOT want to be Speaker. Those that failed to inform the Clerk that they did NOT want to be on the ballot are, as a result, able to stand for election.
That list includes:
- Rob Anders
- Mauril Bélanger
- Paul Calandra
- Joe Comartin
- Dean Del Maestro
- Barry Devolin
- Royal Galipeau
- James Lunney
- Peter Milliken
- Christian Oullet
- Andrew Scheer
- Joy Smith
- David Tilson
- Alan Tonks
- Merv Tweed
- Rodney Weston
The Clerk, Audrey O'Brien, is, right now summoning MPs to their seats and we're just about to get underway …
More in a minute . . .