Speaker Peter Milliken addresses the House of Commons after on Oct. 21, 2009.Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press
Peter Milliken's life led straight as an arrow's flight to his historic decision Tuesday upholding the supremacy of Parliament over the political aims of the executive. It was the dream of the boy become father to the man.
When the diminutive Speaker of the House of Commons delivered his ruling denying the government the unchecked authority to withhold documentation from opposition MPs related to Afghan detainees, he spoke with the profound certainty and knowledge of someone who has immersed himself since he was a teenager in the powers Parliament possesses.
As a 14-year-old in Kingston, Ont., he subscribed to Hansard, the official transcript of parliamentary debates.
For his graduating essay as an honours B.A. student at Kingston's Queen's University, he wrote about the Commons Question Period, an academic work called "the best thing I've ever seen" by his professor, C.E.S. (Ned) Franks, Canada's unparalleled expert on the machinery of Parliament.
In a speech several years ago to the Churchill Society for the Advancement of Parliamentary Democracy - a Canadian charitable organization that honours the life and parliamentary career of the former British prime minister - Mr. Milliken told his audience that it was his life's ambition to be Speaker, the presiding officer and chief traffic cop of Parliament's lower chamber.
It was a fitting venue for him to make that admission.
In the Speaker's oak-panelled apartment in Parliament's Centre Block hangs the famous Yousuf Karsh portrait of Churchill, whose love and respect for Parliament was renowned along with his determination to keep as few secrets as possible from MPs. On occasion, Churchill sealed the entire House of Commons so that he could discuss confidential matters of the Second World War with the country's elected representatives.
"The idea that you could not trust MPs, that just didn't wash with Churchill," said University of Toronto political scientist Peter Russell, a specialist on Parliament and on security issues.
Mr. Milliken, 63, Canada's longest-serving Commons Speaker - elected by three minority parliaments over nine years - is a gregarious, mischievous lawyer who loves classical music, wine, choral singing and whitewater canoeing, and is utterly immersed in the intricate arcane details and skilled social manoeuvrings of being First Commoner of the Land, as the Speaker historically is known.
Why did he want the job from his youth? "It's sort of like asking a fish why he wants to swim," Prof. Franks said.
His reputation as Speaker has been one of intelligence, fairness, civility and superb knowledge of Parliament's rules, procedures and history.
"He has a better knowledge of procedures than a lot of the Commons' procedural clerks. He knows his stuff and he has a very good memory," said Prof. Franks who became a good friend of Mr. Milliken after they met at Queen's - but does not advise him on his job.
Mr. Milliken came from a large, fractious eccentric Kingston family, the oldest child of an academic cardiac surgeon and a mother known for her idiosyncrasies. He understood disorder.
After graduating from Queen's, he took a second honours B.A. and a master's degree from Oxford and then a law degree from Dalhousie.
He sang in university choirs. As a student, he developed a lifelong habit as a voracious and omnivorous reader. He followed in his father's footsteps by building an excellent wine cellar.
He became a surprisingly good athlete - something his slightly rotund, small stature doesn't suggest. He is an excellent canoeist, fearless, with good judgment, says Prof. Franks, himself an outstanding whitewater canoeist.
He is a skilled host, and a gregarious, high-spirited party-goer. His attendance at this year's University of Toronto Massey College Robbie Burns night dinner is still talked about.
Mr. Milliken practised as a lawyer in Kingston after being called to the bar in Ontario in 1973 and was first elected to the House of Commons in 1988 at age 42 as Liberal MP for Kingston and the Islands. He defeated one of Canada's best-known Conservatives, former foreign affairs minister Flora MacDonald.
As a Liberal backbencher, he achieved a fey footnote in Canadian history by introducing, with former cabinet minister John Godfrey, the private members' Godfrey-Milliken Bill - officially known as the American Liberty and Democratic Solidarity (Loyalty) Act - demanding restitution from the U.S. government for descendents of the United Empire Loyalists who lost their homes and businesses when they fled to Canada during the American Revolution.
The bill was a parody of the U.S. Congress's Helms-Burton Act penalizing companies - including a number of Canadian companies - that traded with Cuba.