Federal Green Party Leader Elizabeth May is calling on her colleagues to have perspective and get back to respectful debate in the House of Commons in light of the parliamentary games this week that led to an unprecedented fracas on the House of Commons floor.
“I hope this is the moment when partisan hostilities will recede and we can get on with important work,” May said.
On the second day of apologies from Prime Minister Justin Trudeau after he collided with an NDP MP Ruth Ellen Brosseau as he tried to usher Conservative whip Gord Brown to his seat, May said the Liberals took the high road by withdrawing “unacceptably anti-democratic” Motion 6 from the order paper.
“I am vastly relieved that the Liberals have chosen to step back from escalating partisan power plays in the House,” said May, who represents Saanich-Gulf Islands.
It’s been a week of escalating hostilities, with the NDP and Conservatives working together against the governing Liberals, who are trying to shepherd through Bill C-14, the government’s controversial assisted- death legislation, by the Supreme Court’s deadline of June 6.
“I’m pretty certain there’s blame on all sides,” said May.
The Liberals were told there would be no parliamentary trickery on Monday — when votes rarely take place in the House, May said. But the NDP and Conservatives forced a snap vote on the government’s proposed Air Canada legislation, catching the Liberals unawares and causing a tie vote.
Speaker Geoff Regan ended up having to break a 139-to-139 tie, voting with the government, as Liberal MPs raced back to Parliament Hill from around the city.
“Motion 6 — an effort to strip opposition parties from virtually every measure by which we could be effective — was crafted to retaliate against Conservative and NDP tactics,” May said.
In the House of Commons, 30-minute bells warn MPs to get in their seats before the Speaker starts reading a motion, otherwise their vote won’t count.
On Wednesday, May said she was told by MPs from different parties that if they remained on the floor for three minutes, they could delay the vote.
In hindsight, parliamentarians now know that Brown did not have to be at the front of the House for a time-sensitive vote on C-14 motions. Only the government whip needed to be there and could have called the vote.
But May said that at the time, there was mass confusion.
“I think the melee that ensued — the fact that the Opposition party whip Gord Brown couldn’t make his way through MPs who had their backs to him as he was obviously saying ‘could I get through, could I get through’ — created a circumstance where I don’t think the Speaker knew what to do. I don’t think the sergeant- at-arms knew what to do, I don’t think either whip knew what to do, because we’d not seen this before.”
And it was in that moment “the prime minister decided he could sort this out by helping Brown through the crowd,” May said. “It was an unwise decision. He should have stayed in his seat and none of this would have happened.”
The focus is now on Trudeau, but it should be on the poor behaviour and retaliatory actions on all sides, she said.
