Hello,
The Speaker of the House of Commons is facing criticism again and the Liberal Party has now apologized to him directly.
The source of the criticism stems from an advertisement for an event for Quebec Liberal MP Greg Fergus who also serves as Speaker. It has now been removed from the Liberal Party’s website after Conservative MP Chris Warkentin raised concerns about it.
NDP House Leader Peter Julian called for the Liberal Party to apologize to Mr. Fergus and the House of Commons over the issue. The party then did just that on Tuesday afternoon.
The Conservatives and the Bloc Québécois, on the other hand, see the incident as further evidence that Fergus should resign as Speaker.
Warkentin wrote a letter to Fergus on Tuesday morning about the ad for “A Summer Evening with the Honourable Greg Fergus.”
A post about the event, set to be held early next month, included a line that “Pierre Poilievre and the Conservatives propose reckless policies that would risk our health, safety and pocketbooks.”
Warkentin, who represents the Alberta riding of Grande Prairie-Mackenzie, said in his letter to the Speaker that the event was promoted by attacking Poilievre and included partisan and inflammatory language.
Warkentin said that a Speaker of the House of Commons cannot credibly claim to be objectively policing debate in the House by day while holding “partisan attack rallies against the Leader of the Official Opposition by night.”
In response to Warkentin’s concerns, Mathieu Gravel, the director of outreach and media relations for the Speaker’s Office, said in a Tuesday statement that the event was organized by Mr. Fergus’s riding association for Hull-Aylmer to assist with his re-election efforts.
He said the Speaker’s office had discussed this event with the Clerk of the House of Commons, who raised no concerns, since this event is taking place in Mr. Fergus’s riding, which is permitted.
Gravel said the Hull-Aylmer Federal Liberal Association, which is organizing the event, did not know the event was posted on the Party’s website. “They asked that it be removed as soon as possible; it has now been taken down,” he said.
The text on the website was a generic text produced by the party and it had not been approved by Fergus’s team, Gravel added.
You can find more on this story here.
This is the daily Politics Briefing newsletter, usually written by Ian Bailey. Kristy Kirkup is filling in today. It is available exclusively to our digital subscribers. If you’re reading this on the web, subscribers can sign up for the Politics newsletter and more than 20 others on our newsletter signup page. Have any feedback? Let us know what you think.
TODAY'S HEADLINES
Trudeau yet to comment on ICC arrest warrant for Israeli and Hamas leaders as MPs react: Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has not yet weighed in on a push from the International Criminal Court to prosecute his Israeli counterpart and others over the war in the Gaza Strip.
UN halts all food distribution in Rafah after running out of supplies in the southern Gaza city: The United Nations says it has suspended food distribution in the southern Gaza city of Rafah owing to a lack of supplies and insecurity. It also said no aid trucks entered in the past two days via a floating pier set up by the U.S. for sea deliveries.
Serial killer Robert Pickton seriously wounded in prison assault: Serial killer Robert Pickton was seriously injured in an assault over the weekend at a maximum-security prison in Quebec, Correctional Service Canada confirmed.
Inflation cools to 2.7% in April, increasing odds of a summer interest rate cut: Canada’s inflation rate cooled in April and bespoke measures of consumer price growth are also on the wane, bolstering the case for the Bank of Canada to start cutting interest rates this summer.
THE DECIBEL
There is no episode of The Decibel this Tuesday. On Saturday, the podcast aired a special episode on Alice Munro. You can find it here.
PRIME MINISTER'S DAY
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is in Philadelphia on Tuesday. He began the day by virtually attend the Artificial Intelligence Seoul Summit. He also conducted meetings including with the U.S. Vice-President Kamala Harris.
LEADERS
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is in Ottawa, where he attended Question Period, as did NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh and Bloc Québécois Leader Yves-François Blanchet.
OPINION
Doug Ford wants a moratorium on new safe supply sites. Okay. Then what?:
“Mr. Ford’s letter to the Prime Minister requesting an end to new safe supply sites was a political document, not a procedural one, as most Doug Ford documents are. The nominally conservative Premier, who spends like a teen with his first credit card, will use any easy opportunity to show off his conservative bona fides, and resurrecting an old “war-on-drugs” mentality is perhaps the easiest way to do so.” —Robyn Urback
Getting hip to the dangers of fractures in the elderly:
People break all manner of bones – wrists, arms, vertebrae, etc. – but broken hips are both the most common and the deadliest. Researchers noted that while women have much better survival rates than men after hip fractures, women are also far more likely to break bones in the first place. — André Picard
The Liberals’ legal retreat on climate:
“The Liberals’ climate ambitions have helped reduce Canada’s emissions 5 per cent during their time in office but remain far from the target. The retreat on the federal environmental review law doesn’t mean the end of progress, but it puts more pressure on other policies to achieve the country’s climate goals.” —Globe and Mail Editorial Board
Fordeau: The Ford and Trudeau governments share an affection for spending and taxes:
“To be sure, the fiscal-policy approaches of Mr. Ford and Mr. Trudeau are not identical. The Trudeau government is more active in its pursuit of additional tax revenue and more spending while the Ford government is more passive, leaving high tax rates and spending levels where they are and shrugging its collective shoulders at large deficits and debt accumulation. However, the two governments’ fiscal approaches have many similarities.” — Ben Eisen for The Globe and Mail
Increasing the capital-gains taxes will hurt health care in Canada:
“The proposed capital-gains tax increases will render Canadian cities even less competitive than locales south of the border or abroad. For private startups and public companies alike, stock options are used to attract and retain top-tier talent, many of whom will agree to forgo substantially larger salaries for a possible upside years down the road.” — Cheryl V. Reicin for The Globe and Mail
Got a news tip that you’d like us to look into? E-mail us at tips@globeandmail.com. Need to share documents securely? Reach out via SecureDrop.