Conservative MP Chris Warkentin (Grande Prairie-Mackenzie, AB) said Speaker of the House of Commons Greg Fergus lacks the neutrality required for his role. The Liberals have advertised an event called A Summer Evening with the Honourable Greg Fergus scheduled for June 4 across the river from Parliament Hill. “The promotional material uses inflammatory partisan attacks about the Leader of the Official Opposition and the Conservative Party,” said Warkentin in a Tuesday statement. “This is the same Speaker who, just a few weeks ago, used the authority of his position to kick out the Leader of the Opposition while giving a free pass to the Prime Minister for using similar language.” Warkentin said Fergus “has shown that he has no intention of remaining non-partisan.” In addition to these two incidents, he spoke at a cocktail fundraising dinner for a Liberal MP, addressed the Ontario Liberal leadership race vote in his uniform, and jetted off to Washington to make a speech about his days with the Young Liberals. For months, Warkentin said Conservatives have known Fergus has no intention of doing his job well or fairly. The NDP has stood behind him. However, the NDP promised after he spoke at the Ontario Liberal leadership race vote it would call for him to step down if a similar incident happened again. Warkentin concluded by saying it has happened again. “If Fergus refuses to see the obvious error of his conduct, the NDP must finally join the Conservatives and the Bloc to express non-confidence in the Speaker,” he said. Liberal National Director Azam Ishmael said an event was posted to its website for Fergus’ riding, which had partisan language in it. “The language that was posted on the event page of liberal.ca was the auto-populated, standard language we use for events on our website and was posted without your knowledge and as a result of a miscommunication between the Party and the riding association,” said Ishmael. “This language has been corrected.” .Ishmael apologized for this mistake and took full responsibility. Opposition Leader’s Office Director of Media Relations Sebastian Skamski called the latest excuse for this scandal “a desperate attempt to cover up his conduct.”“He and his team are solely responsible for posting the partisan messaging, as is made very clear on the Liberal website,” said Skamski. “This hostile and partisan attack on the Leader of the Opposition and Conservative MPs is just the latest example of Greg Fergus’s partisan conduct as Speaker and makes clear that he is not capable of the neutrality that is required in the role.”Instead of continuing to lie and divide Canadians, Skamski said he must resign.Fergus was ordered to issue a fourteenth apology and decide on the amount of a fine he would pay for breaching the rules of impartiality in December. READ MORE: Speaker Fergus to apologize for fourteenth time, pay fineThe House of Commons Affairs Committee turned down the requests made by 149 Conservative and Bloc Quebecois MPs calling for his resignation. “For us in the Liberal Party, he made a mistake, he apologized,” said former government house leader Karina Gould.
Conservative MP Chris Warkentin (Grande Prairie-Mackenzie, AB) said Speaker of the House of Commons Greg Fergus lacks the neutrality required for his role. The Liberals have advertised an event called A Summer Evening with the Honourable Greg Fergus scheduled for June 4 across the river from Parliament Hill. “The promotional material uses inflammatory partisan attacks about the Leader of the Official Opposition and the Conservative Party,” said Warkentin in a Tuesday statement. “This is the same Speaker who, just a few weeks ago, used the authority of his position to kick out the Leader of the Opposition while giving a free pass to the Prime Minister for using similar language.” Warkentin said Fergus “has shown that he has no intention of remaining non-partisan.” In addition to these two incidents, he spoke at a cocktail fundraising dinner for a Liberal MP, addressed the Ontario Liberal leadership race vote in his uniform, and jetted off to Washington to make a speech about his days with the Young Liberals. For months, Warkentin said Conservatives have known Fergus has no intention of doing his job well or fairly. The NDP has stood behind him. However, the NDP promised after he spoke at the Ontario Liberal leadership race vote it would call for him to step down if a similar incident happened again. Warkentin concluded by saying it has happened again. “If Fergus refuses to see the obvious error of his conduct, the NDP must finally join the Conservatives and the Bloc to express non-confidence in the Speaker,” he said. Liberal National Director Azam Ishmael said an event was posted to its website for Fergus’ riding, which had partisan language in it. “The language that was posted on the event page of liberal.ca was the auto-populated, standard language we use for events on our website and was posted without your knowledge and as a result of a miscommunication between the Party and the riding association,” said Ishmael. “This language has been corrected.” .Ishmael apologized for this mistake and took full responsibility. Opposition Leader’s Office Director of Media Relations Sebastian Skamski called the latest excuse for this scandal “a desperate attempt to cover up his conduct.”“He and his team are solely responsible for posting the partisan messaging, as is made very clear on the Liberal website,” said Skamski. “This hostile and partisan attack on the Leader of the Opposition and Conservative MPs is just the latest example of Greg Fergus’s partisan conduct as Speaker and makes clear that he is not capable of the neutrality that is required in the role.”Instead of continuing to lie and divide Canadians, Skamski said he must resign.Fergus was ordered to issue a fourteenth apology and decide on the amount of a fine he would pay for breaching the rules of impartiality in December. READ MORE: Speaker Fergus to apologize for fourteenth time, pay fineThe House of Commons Affairs Committee turned down the requests made by 149 Conservative and Bloc Quebecois MPs calling for his resignation. “For us in the Liberal Party, he made a mistake, he apologized,” said former government house leader Karina Gould.
