Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says he does not regret calling Prime Minister Justin Trudeau “wacko,” and now his MPs are renewing calls for the House of Commons Speaker to resign, this time over ordering the Official Opposition leader to leave the chamber.
On Tuesday, Poilievre was kicked out of the House by Speaker Greg Fergus, after repeatedly refusing to withdraw his remark, made in the context of Trudeau’s policy on hard drug decriminalization and amid a series of heated exchanges between the two leaders that saw Trudeau accuse his opponent of being “spineless.”
After being called out by the Speaker for his language, Poilievre offered to replace the word “wacko” with “extremist” or “radical,” and that didn’t fly, resulting in him being named and told to leave.
In an interview on CP24’s morning program on Wednesday, Poilievre was asked if he regrets saying what he did, and he said: “no.”
“Because I can’t think of any other word to describe what he’s doing in our communities… His policies are wacko. Hiking the carbon tax to 61 cents a litre, wacko. Doubling housing costs, wacko. Doubling the national debt and causing the worst inflation in 40 years, is wacko. And I’m just calling it as it is,” Poilievre said.
Meanwhile, as his MPs filed into the Conservative caucus meeting room Wednesday morning, some told reporters they think the Speaker should resign, a call they also made in December, unsuccessfully.
“He should resign, he’s a disgrace,” said Conservative MP Michael Cooper.
Arguing the contrary, the federal Liberals are accusing Poilievre of bringing “extreme right-wing” language and tactics into the House of Commons and then when they’re called on it, claiming “they are victims.”
That’s how Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon phrased it during an interview on CTV News Channel’s Question Period on Tuesday evening.
On his way in to the Liberal caucus meeting on Wednesday morning, MacKinnon doubled down and defended Fergus.
“Mr. Fergus is the Speaker and we respect all of his rulings,” he said.
“They come into our democratic institutions, they break all the rules, and when they are called on breaking all of the rules, they leave and say they’ve been gagged. Well, Mr. Poilievre has that in common with another person yesterday who walked out of a courtroom in New York,” MacKinnon said, referencing former U.S. president Donald Trump.
Stopped by CTV News on his way up to Parliament Hill, Fergus was asked for his response to some MPs saying they’ve lost confidence in him as Speaker because, in their view, Trudeau did not face repercussions for his remarks.
“I can’t respond. It would be unfair for the Speaker to comment on things that happened in the House,” he said, walking away while being asked if he regrets how things played out, or whether he’s concerned about the dynamic in the House.
NDP MP Don Davies said Wednesday that the lives taken by Canada’s overdose crisis and British Columbia’s request to amend Health Canada’s provision decriminalizing public possession of hard drugs should be taken seriously by federal politicians.
“Reducing it to schoolyard language is not helpful,” Davies said.
He said it’s the Speaker’s job to uphold decorum by enforcing standards of conduct in the House of Commons. “It’s one of the most basic rules of Parliament, that you can attack the idea and the concept, but you don’t attack each other.”
‘Wacko’ used in House before
As the Conservatives have been quick to point out, the word “wacko” has been used in Parliament previously, without consequence. Though, a search of references to the word in the House of Commons over the last decade indicates that other times the word has been said in the chamber were in other contexts.
For example, in June 2023 when discussing Bill C-11, the Online Streaming Act, NDP House Leader Peter Julian said “we have had absolutely wacko claims by Conservatives,” and that it was “a wacko comment to say that somehow Bill C-11 is connected to governments following people on cellphones. It is just an unbelievable piece of disinformation.”
Commenting on the different context, Julian said that he had “never called a person wacko.”
“That would be unparliamentary. That is what Poilievre did,” Julian said in a social media post on Tuesday.
Back in 2012, then-Conservative MP Dean Del Mastro said: “Last week, the Liberal leader indicated that suggestions being brought forward by myself and this party were, indeed, wacko. Unfortunately, they have proven to be absolutely true,” when talking about robocall allegations.
Speaker Fergus will likely face complaints from the Conservatives when the House business resumes on Wednesday afternoon.
What the ‘unparliamentary’ rules are
What he will have to reference in justifying his decision, if he does, would be the House of Commons rules around unparliamentary language.
Those guideposts state “the use of offensive, provocative or threatening language in the House is strictly forbidden,” and “personal attacks, insults and obscenities are not in order.”
The rules note that the Speaker can first ask the MP who used improper language to withdraw it, and if they refuse, they can be named directly – something that seldom happens in the House – and asked to leave for the remainder of the sitting day.
Further, when dealing with this language, “the Speaker takes into account the tone, manner and intention of the member speaking, the person to whom the words at issue were directed, the degree of provocation, and most important, whether or not the remarks created disorder in the Chamber.”
The rules also note that with this in mind, language deemed unparliamentary one day may not necessarily be deemed unparliamentary another day.
“Expressions which are considered unparliamentary when applied to an individual Member have not always been considered so when applied ‘in a generic sense’ or to a party.”
Recapping heated MP reaction
Speaking to reporters after Tuesday’s high-drama breakdown of decorum, Conservative MPs were outraged at what they considered an unfair ruling by the Speaker, while NDP and Liberal MPs balked at what they said was a disrespectful display done deliberately for fundraising fodder, and defended Fergus for doing his job.
Of note, both the Conservatives and the Liberals blasted emails to their supporters about the ordeal in the hours afterwards.
To get a slice of the ranging reactions, here’s what some MPs had to say.
Minister Marc Miller, while noting he in the past has been guilty of and has apologized for using unparliamentary language, said that Poilievre “has never shut his mouth in his life.”
“Who silences him? … The stuff that he does in the House of Commons is disgraceful. And he plays on that. He’s a guy that likes to play outside the lines. When someone steps out the lines to confront him, he freezes,” Miller said.
Liberal MP Judy Sgro said that after the Conservatives left, “we had a great question period.”
“Everybody was respectful of each other, as it should be… I think Mr. Poilievre should come into question period tomorrow and sit down and behave himself… He’s touting himself as the next leader. Well, he needs to show it. And he certainly wasn’t showing it today,” she said.
Conservative MP Michelle Rempel Garner called the situation “unbelievable.”
“The fact that the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada was thrown out of there for doing his exact job is shameful,” she said.
Making the case that Poilievre did withdraw his comment by offering to replace it with others, Conservative MP Michael Barrett said the Speaker ejected his leader for calling Trudeau’s drug policy “exactly what it is.”
“The problem is that there’s two sets of rules. There was a set of rules that was being applied to the leader of the Official Opposition and there was a different set of rules being applied to the prime minister. Mr. Poilievre laid out very clearly that it’s a wacko policy and so it’s for the prime minister to explain why he’s letting that stay in place.”
NDP MP Alexander Boulerice said he’s “a bit afraid” of what Wednesday’s question period will look like.
“You can see the division, you can see the insults… This is not being an adult in the room. This is not somebody who can be the prime minister,” he said.