Preface

The Selected Decisions of Speaker Peter Milliken is the eighth in a series of volumes which brings together, in a comprehensive collection, the significant modern rulings of Speakers of the House of Commons. Earlier volumes contained the decisions of Speakers Lucien Lamoureux (1966-1974), James Jerome (1974-1979), Jeanne Sauvé (1980-1984), Lloyd Francis (1984), John Bosley (1984-1986), John A. Fraser (1986-1994) and Gilbert Parent (1994-2001). The present volume contains 228 decisions from the period 2001 to 2011 during which Mr. Speaker Milliken presided over the House.

Mr. Speaker Milliken was first elected to Parliament in 1988 and was re-elected in 1993, 1997, 2000, 2004, 2006, and 2008. He was first elected Speaker of the House in late January 2001, at the beginning of the Thirty-Seventh Parliament, the third Speaker to be elected by secret ballot of his peers. He was re-elected Speaker three times—a record—at the beginning of the Thirty-Eighth (2004), Thirty-Ninth (2006), and Fortieth (2008) Parliaments. It is worthy of note that in the Thirty-Ninth and Fortieth Parliaments, he became only the second Speaker elected from an opposition party, the other being Mr. Speaker Jerome. On October 12, 2009, he became the longest-serving Speaker of the House of Commons in our history.

Through numerous decisions and other interventions during the Parliaments in which he served, Mr. Speaker Milliken gained a well-deserved reputation for his procedural expertise and wisdom, and for interventions characterized by an intelligent sense of humour. His rulings were widely praised for their fairness.

During Mr. Speaker Milliken’s first term, several important changes were made to the procedures of the House. Arguably, the most significant of these accorded the Speaker broad discretion in the selection of motions in amendment to bills at report stage. While serving three minority Parliaments, he was obliged to exercise the casting vote of the Chair an unprecedented five times. At the time of his retirement in 2011, a total of 15 casting votes had occurred since Confederation. It was also over this lengthy period of minority Parliaments, from 2004 to 2011, that his extensive procedural knowledge, fed by his lifelong interest in the traditions and usages of the House, proved its worth. He frequently navigated a careful course in the midst of partisan struggles that saw historic clashes between the Government and Opposition, often over privilege matters. As in all of his rulings, Mr. Speaker Milliken’s focus was the protection of the rights and privileges of the House and its Members.

With regard to the collective rights of the House, two prima facie questions of privilege were especially significant to our understanding of those rights: the first related to the House’s Order to produce documents relating to the detention of combatants by Canadian Forces in Afghanistan and a second regarding the Standing Committee on Finance’s Order for the production of documents related to cost estimates for a variety of Government policy initiatives. Events arising from the latter case subsequently led to the adoption by the House, on March 25, 2011, of a motion of non-confidence in the Government and the dissolution of the Fortieth Parliament.

Prior to the vote, the last over which Mr. Speaker Milliken would preside, he was praised by Members from all sides of the House. The then Government House Leader (John Baird) paid homage to Mr. Speaker Milliken’s career, predicting that he would be remembered as perhaps “the best Speaker the House of Commons has ever had.”^[1] The Leader of the Official Opposition (Michael Ignatieff) at the time said of him, “Mr. Speaker, you have taught us all, sometimes with a modest rebuke, sometimes with the sharp sting of focused argument, to understand, to respect and to cherish the rules of Canadian democracy, and for that your citizens will always hold you in highest honour.”^[2] The decisions published here are part of the legacy of a remarkable speakership which will certainly continue to figure prominently in any history of the House of Commons.

It is the purpose of this volume to present in structured form highlights of Mr. Speaker Milliken’s outstanding procedural legacy. Each of the selected decisions is presented here in a uniform format, that includes a brief account of the procedural or political background surrounding the issue raised, followed by a summary of the resolution of the matter. The entire text of the decision as delivered by Mr. Speaker Milliken or one of his fellow Presiding Officers is then presented, along with any necessary footnote references. Each decision within a given chapter has a descriptive header which indicates the primary procedural issue being decided; in some cases, a postscript explaining a pertinent outcome or subsequent action is also included. The decisions are grouped within 10 chapters, each of which begins with a brief introductory passage. In all but two of the chapters, the sequence of decisions is by order of date delivered within groupings of like subject-matter headings. In the remaining two chapters, the sequence is strictly chronological.

There are a number of search methods by which particular decisions can be located. At the back, the volume contains both a chronological listing of all decisions and a detailed analytical index. In addition, readers are encouraged to refer to the introductions to the various chapters and to scan the descriptive headers located at the top of each decision to determine whether the subject matter or even a particular aspect of that subject matter would encourage them to view the entire decision. It should be remembered that this volume, like others in the series, represents a selection of key decisions. In all, Mr. Speaker Milliken and his fellow Presiding Officers were required to adjudicate on more than 900 occasions during the period of time covered by this volume.

Many people have contributed to the completion of this volume. I would like to acknowledge the roles played by Deputy Clerk Marc Bosc and Clerk Assistant Bev Isles who led the project team with energy and grace. I wish to recognize them and their team and to thank them for their professionalism and their tireless efforts. In particular, I wish to acknowledge the contribution of many procedural clerks, particularly in the Table Research Branch who, under the guidance of the Deputy Principal Clerk, prepared the initial selection and compilation of the rulings and undertook the revision, verification and editing of the contents of this work. Special mention should also be made of the assistance of Translation Services, along with Parliamentary Publications and the publications team (with its Deputy Principal Clerk) who published the text.

It was for me a privilege and a pleasure to work closely with Mr. Speaker Milliken, first as Deputy Clerk and then as Clerk from 2005 to his retirement. His knowledge of parliamentary procedure was encyclopedic and he showed unstinting dedication to the institution of Parliament. But he was no utopian theorist: Peter Milliken saw the Speaker as a servant of the House. Elected to preside over the deliberations of the House, he knew he could only do so while he enjoyed the trust of Members and the House’s confidence in the fairness of his decisions. Most significantly, Mr. Speaker Milliken recognized that the peculiar circumstances of minority parliaments left him to face challenges that most of his predecessors never had to deal with. Notably, he faced challenges that emerged when, frustrated by the failure to find solutions to political problems, Members tried to transform those problems into procedural issues. Mr. Speaker Milliken faced those situations with clear-headed realism, rendering, when necessary, decisions that sought to distinguish between the political and the procedural, to leave each to its appropriate realm—always with a view to protecting the primacy of Parliament.

Ottawa, 2013

Audrey O’Brien

Clerk of the House of Commons