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The Presiding Officer (Hon. Louis Plamondon)

Oct/3/23 10:04:56 a.m.
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Further to that statement, the list of candidates is revised accordingly. Pursuant to Standing Order 3.1, the House must proceed to the speeches from each candidate for Speaker. Notwithstanding any Standing Order, any procedure or any practice adopted by this House, and to help the newly elected members identify the candidates for the office of Speaker, I will recognize in alphabetical order each candidate by name and electoral district. When the last candidate to address the House completes his or her speech, I will leave the chair for 30 minutes, after which members will proceed to the election of the Speaker. I will now call upon Mr. Sean Casey, the hon. member for Charlottetown, to speak for not more than five minutes.

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Context: House Hansard - 228 - Oct/3/23

Mr. Chris d'Entremont (West Nova, CPC)

Oct/3/23 10:12:06 a.m.
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Thank you, Mr. Chair. It is an honour for me to stand before my dear colleagues today on the traditional territory of the Algonquin Anishinabe people to say a few words on my candidacy for Speaker of the House of Commons in the ongoing 44th Parliament. I would first like to express my sincere thanks to the member of Parliament for Nipissing—Timiskaming for all the work that he accomplished as Speaker of the House of Commons over the last four years. It has not been easy any one of those days. I am addressing you, hon. colleagues, for the second time as candidate for the position of Speaker. Since 2021, some of us have left and others have recently arrived. Colleagues, today I am running to be your Speaker. My last two years as Deputy Speaker of the House has confirmed my deep desire to continue to work as your Speaker. My experience will assist you in the discharging of your responsibilities. Since my election to the House of Commons in 2019, I have gotten to know quite a few of you, from all parties. I have taken that duty to heart ever since I was named Deputy Speaker in 2021. I thank you all for the great talks. I intend to maintain this approach regardless of the vote's result, because friendship must prevail in the House. Hon. colleagues, I have heard you. Like many of you, I want to restore this august place's reputation. It is the Speaker's duty to put respect for each other, for our Standing Orders, for decorum and for procedures at the centre of our proceedings. I am convinced that I will successfully fulfill the Speaker's duties and make sure that the powers and privileges of the House are top priorities. We must carry out our duties with diligence, honesty and respect. You can count on me to lead by example. I will exercise my functions in a fair, non-partisan and firm manner, as it is important for me to protect the right to speak for each one of you in this place. As many of you know by now, I have a very calm French Canadian demeanour and work well with others. In fact, these are traits that are strongly tied to my deep Acadian roots, as we Nova Scotian Acadians learned, once we returned home from exile, to remain calm and non-confrontational and to continuously strive for consensus no matter the situation we find ourselves in. Let us remember that the last few years have been difficult, and we have faced many challenges. Last week was incredible. Canadians are currently going through a lot and looking for stability and strong leadership at the core of our country's democracy. In this regard, I wish to lead an all-party approach and put my skills, ability and experience to work to enable hon. members to navigate the House of Commons in the safest and most effective way possible while you fulfill your very important responsibilities to Canadians. As we rise to the many challenges we face, I know that I can make a valuable contribution by uniting, rather than dividing, the members of this chamber. The Speaker is responsible for ensuring respect for members of every party as well as their strengths and values. Canada is a bilingual nation, and the Speaker of the House must also be bilingual. However, beyond the ability to speak both official languages, the Speaker must have a firm grasp of the unique linguistic and cultural characteristics of the people who call these languages their own. I can meet this imperative. We know as elected representatives of this chamber, it is our duty to ensure the health of our democracy is preserved and always well-respected. It is up to us to elect a Speaker who will truly be a guardian of this chamber. The Speaker has the responsibility and privilege to lead by example at all times by being a Speaker who has a good handle of the rules, and who can quickly make decisions so meaningful, structured debate can happen. Whether this Parliament ends in a few months or two years, I want to make sure that the work and values of the House align with Canadians' expectations of the institution at the heart of our democracy. Above all, I want to ensure that each one of you can look back when this parliamentary session is over and proudly say that it was productive, positive and respectful. It has been an honour to serve as your Deputy Speaker for the past two years. It would be an honour to become your Speaker, to support you in your very important responsibilities. Colleagues, I humbly ask for your vote today. Colleagues, I humbly ask that you vote for me today. I could maybe say that one of the first honours of duty, for whoever becomes Speaker today, would be to bring down the heat, and I mean the temperature because, my goodness, it is hot in here today. Thank you and have a nice day. I look forward to your vote.

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Context: House Hansard - 228 - Oct/3/23

Mr. Peter Schiefke (Vaudreuil—Soulanges, Lib.)

Oct/3/23 10:39:17 a.m.
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Mr. Chair, right hon. Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition, leader of the Bloc Québécois, leader of the NDP, leader of the Green Party, hon. colleagues, hon. candidates, dear friends, it is a privilege for me to rise in the House today as an official candidate for Speaker of the House of Commons. Colleagues, I am running for this position because I want to follow in the footsteps of the extraordinary men and women who came before me in service of us all. Two of those extraordinary men are here in the chamber with us: the hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle and the hon. member for Nipissing—Timiskaming. Honourable colleagues, to stand here as a candidate for Speaker means to stand for the candidacy of the custodian and the guardian of this sacred democratic chamber. It is not lost on me that I do so 71 years after my grandfather, Luis Gonzalez, fled Spain under dictatorial rule, boarding a ship called the Anna Salen in search of a place where he could speak freely, where he could send a representative to speak on his behalf, arriving on the shores of Halifax on December 29, 1952. This past weekend, my daughter Ellie, who just turned seven, asked me what I was doing. I told her that I was running for speakership of this place. She is too young to understand what that means. She is too young to fully grasp the significance of the work that we do here every single day, but she will understand it one day. Colleagues, if you are asking me for my two reasons for running to be the 38th Speaker, there they are: to be your servant as we honour those who sought this place out in generations past and to be your servant to help build an even stronger democratic institution for my children, your children and future generations of Canadians. Colleagues, we are at a pivotal moment in Canadian history. I truly feel that. Through the conversations that I have had with so many of you over the weekend, I know that you feel that way, too. We have the work ahead of us of rebuilding trust in this place among members, of rebuilding trust that Canadians have in this place, of rebuilding trust that our allies and friends around the world have in us. As your Speaker, that will be my primary priority. First and foremost, I seek to put in place a policy that will ensure due diligence, so that when I rise as your Speaker to ask hon. members to rise on behalf of somebody who is in the gallery, you can do so with trust and with confidence. I pledge to you that within one week of being elected your Speaker, I will invite Jewish community leaders from across the country, as well as veterans groups that are also affected by what happened that Friday, to this place, to apologize as your Speaker on behalf of all members of this House. I pledge that I will send a communiqué within one week of being elected Speaker to the hon. Speaker of the Parliament of Ukraine, informing him of my intentions to apologize to him and the members of the Ukrainian Parliament. I believe these to be diligent measures and ones that are necessary if we seek to move on and truly reconcile with what occurred on September 22. Just as important will be my work to ensure that your right to speak freely in this place is defended. The story goes that the distance between the Right Hon. Prime Minister's desk and the desk of the leader of the official opposition was measured in such a way to be the distance of two duelling individuals, their swords drawn, with one inch added in the middle, that inch to symbolize that in this place we solve our differences not through violence but through discourse, dialogue and debate. As your Speaker, I vow to do everything that I can within the powers and the tools available to me as Speaker, to ensure that when you come to this place every single day to do the hard work for Canadians, you are able to do that, to share your gift, the gift that your constituents saw in you and the reason they sent you here: to be able to share that gift unimpeded and without fear of intimidation. Hon. colleagues, since 2015, I have had the privilege of working with you as the proud member for Vaudreuil—Soulanges, as the parliamentary secretary on four different portfolios and as the chair of a committee. I hope that those I have had the chance to work with could see that I am a fair and transparent person. I come here every day with the intention of working with you, regardless of which party you belong to, to find solutions for improving Canadians' quality of life. Hon. colleagues, I sincerely thank you for giving me the opportunity to address you today. Colleagues, I hope you will give me the grand honour of being the 38th Speaker of this House of Commons.

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