The new Speaker of the House of Commons will be elected on June 2 and, until today, the entrants in that race were all Conservative MPs. The declared candidates include MPs Andrew Scheer, Barry Devolin, Lee Richardson, Dean Allison, and Bruce Stanton. Two other Conservative MPs — Merv Tweed and Ed Holder — are considering taking a run at the job.
Today, though, the first opposition MP declared her intention to win the job. NDP MP Denise Savoie (left) is in the race. Savoie was the Deputy Chair of Committees of the Whole – a kind of assistant deputy speaker — in the last Parliament. Savoie, who was born in St. Boniface, Manitoba and now represents the riding of Victoria (BC), would be the most bilingual of the candidates at this point.
Here is the release from the NDP:
“I’m running for Speaker with a singular focus on raising the tone and quality of debate in Parliament, to restore the trust that Canadians deserve to have in their politicians and democratic institutions,” said Savoie.
As Assistant Deputy Speaker in the last Parliament Savoie launched a number of explicitly non-partisan initiatives aimed at fostering constructive and informed discussion on important topics, including workshops on climate change and the first all-party Parliamentary Arts Caucus.
“I’m asking my fellow MPs to imagine a Parliament that functions well – where debate is not focused on scoring points, but rather on creating better, more inclusive public policy,” said Savoie.
As a fluently bilingual Franco-Manitoban who has lived in Alberta, Ontario, Quebec, and now in British Columbia, Savoie brings a pan-Canadian perspective to the Speaker’s Chair.
MPs vote for the Speaker and the voting is done by secret ballot. The winner must get a majority — not a plurality — of votes and that first one that does so is the winner. In 2008, it took five ballots and about 5 hours of voting before Peter Milliken was declared the winner.