Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre says he has no regrets for calling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “crazy,” and now his MPs are renewing calls for the House of Commons speaker to resign, this time for ordering the leader of the official opposition to leave the chamber.
On Tuesday, Poilievre was expelled from the House by Speaker Greg Fergus, after repeatedly refusing to withdraw his comment, made in the context of Trudeau’s policy on the decriminalization of hard drugs and amid a series of heated exchanges between the two leaders in which Trudeau accused his opponent of being a “coward.”
After being criticized by the spokesperson for his language, Poilievre offered to replace the word “crazy” with “extremist” or “radical”, and that did not work, resulting in him being named and told to leave.
In an interview on CP24’s morning show Wednesday, Poilievre was asked if he regrets saying what he did, and he responded, “no.”
“Because I can’t think of any other word to describe what he’s doing in our communities… His policies are crazy. Raising the carbon tax to 61 cents a liter, crazy. Doubling housing costs, crazy “Doubling the national debt and causing the worst inflation in 40 years is crazy and I’m just calling it what it is,” Poilievre said.
Meanwhile, as his MPs filed into the Conservative group’s meeting room on Wednesday morning, some told reporters they thought the president should resign, a call they also made in December, to no avail.
“He should resign, it’s a disgrace,” said Conservative MP Michael Cooper.
Arguing otherwise, the federal Liberals accuse Poilievre of bringing “far-right” language and tactics to the House of Commons and then, when called upon, claim that “they are victims.”
This was expressed by House Leader Steven MacKinnon during an interview on the CTV News channel’s quiz show Tuesday night.
On the way to the Liberal caucus meeting Wednesday morning, MacKinnon redoubled his efforts and defended Fergus.
“Mr Fergus is the spokesperson and we respect all his rulings,” he said.
“They come into our democratic institutions, they break all the rules, and when they are asked to break all the rules, they leave and say they have been gagged. Well, Mr. Poilievre has that in common with another person yesterday who left a room of the court in New York,” MacKinnon said, referring to former US President Donald Trump.
Stopped by CTV News on his way to Parliament Hill, Fergus was asked his response to some MPs who said they had lost confidence in him as president because, in their view, Trudeau faced no repercussions for his comments.
“I can’t answer. It would be unfair for the president to comment on things that happened in the House,” he said, walking away as he was asked if he was sorry for how things unfolded or if he was concerned about the dynamics in the House. Home.
NDP MP Don Davies said Wednesday that federal politicians should take seriously the lives claimed by Canada’s overdose crisis and British Columbia’s request to amend Health Canada’s provision decriminalizing public possession of hard drugs.
“Reducing it to school language doesn’t help,” Davies said.
He said the Speaker’s job is to maintain decorum by enforcing rules of conduct in the House of Commons. “It is one of the most basic rules of Parliament that you can attack the idea and the concept, but you do not attack each other.”
‘Wacko’ used in House before
As the Conservatives were quick to point out, the word “crazy” has been used before in Parliament, without consequence. Although, a search for references to the word in the House of Commons over the last decade indicates that other times the word was said in the chamber was in other contexts.
For example, in June 2023, when discussing Bill C-11, the Online Broadcasting Act, NDP House Leader Peter Julian said “we have had absolutely crazy claims from the Conservatives” and that it was “a crazy comment to say that somehow Bill C-11 is related to governments tracking people via cell phones. It’s just incredible misinformation.”
Commenting on the different context, Julian said he had “never called a person crazy.”
“That would be unparliamentary. That’s what Poilievre did,” Julian said in a social media post on Tuesday.
In 2012, then-Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro said: “Last week, the Liberal leader indicated that the suggestions put forward by me and this party were, in fact, madness. Unfortunately, they have been proven to be absolutely true,” when speaking over robocall allegations.
Speaker Fergus will likely face complaints from Conservatives when House business resumes on Wednesday afternoon.
What are the ‘non-parliamentary’ rules?
What he will have to refer to to justify his decision, if he does so, would be the House of Commons rules on non-parliamentary language.
Those guidelines state that “the use of offensive, provocative or threatening language in the House is strictly prohibited” and that “personal attacks, insults and obscenities are not permitted.”
The rules state that the Speaker can first ask the MP who used inappropriate language to remove it, and if he or she refuses, he or she can be named directly (something that rarely happens in the House) and asked to leave for the rest of the day. session.
Furthermore, when it comes to this language, “the Speaker takes into account the tone, manner and intent of the member speaking, the person to whom the words in question were addressed, the degree of provocation and, most importantly, whether “The comments were or were not creating disorder in the House.”
The rules also state that, with this in mind, language considered unparliamentary one day may not necessarily be considered unparliamentary another day.
“Expressions which are considered unparliamentary when applied to an individual Member have not always been so when applied ‘in a generic sense’ or to a party.”
Recapitulating the heated MP reaction
Speaking to reporters after Tuesday’s dramatic breach of decorum, Conservative MPs were outraged by what they saw as an unfair ruling by the president, while NDP and Liberal MPs objected to what they said was a disrespectful display deliberately done to raise funds, and they defended Fergus. for doing his job.
Of note, both conservatives and liberals emailed their supporters about the ordeal in the hours afterward.
To get an idea of the various reactions, here is what some parliamentarians said.
Minister Marc Miller, while noting that he had been guilty in the past and apologizing for using unparliamentary language, said that Poilievre “has never shut his mouth in his life.”
“Who silences him?… The things he does in the House of Commons are embarrassing. And he plays with that. He’s a guy who likes to play outside the lines. When someone steps out of the lines to confront him , it freezes”. Miller said.
Liberal MP Judy Sgro said that after the Conservatives left, “we had a big question period.”
“Everyone was respectful of each other, as they should be… I think Mr. Poilievre should go into question period tomorrow and sit down and behave… He’s promoting himself as the next leader. Well, he needs to prove it. And certainly I wasn’t showing it today,” he said.
Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner called the situation “unbelievable.”
“The fact that the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada was kicked out of there for doing exactly his job is shameful,” he said.
Arguing that Poilievre withdrew his comment and offered to replace it with others, Conservative MP Michael Barrett said the president ousted his leader for calling Trudeau’s drug policy “exactly what it is.”
“The problem is that there are two sets of rules. There was one set of rules that applied to the leader of the official opposition and another set of rules that applied to the prime minister. Mr. Poilievre explained it very clearly. “It is a crazy policy and therefore it is up to the Prime Minister to explain why he allows that to continue.”
NDP MP Alexander Boulerice said he’s “a little scared” of what Wednesday’s question period will be like.
“You can see the division, you can see the insults… It’s not about being an adult in the room. It’s not about someone who can be prime minister,” he said.