Randy Weekes, the Speaker of the Legislative Assembly of Saskatchewan, talks to reporters in Regina, on May 16.Jeremy Simes/The Canadian Press
Spare a thought for the Speakers of Canada’s legislative bodies. In the country’s capital, the Speaker is being lambasted for being too close to his party. In Regina, the Speaker is estranged from his – saying he has long been worried about guns and violence in the House, and his own personal safety.
In Ottawa, Speaker Greg Fergus now acts as referee in the House of Commons while facing a wall of skepticism. He was criticized in December for participating in a video – produced to be screened at a provincial Liberal party meeting – where he wore his Speaker’s uniform. Mr. Fergus acknowledged he messed up, and apologized. But that early sour note has cast a shadow over more recent decisions, including last month when he kicked Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre out of the House for a particularly nasty comment during a debate where the Liberals also used personal and charged language.
All of this matters because of the pivotal role of Speaker. Guiding the proceedings of law-making demands independence, and separation from partisanship. Even though speakers are elected members of a party (most often the governing one), they don’t, for instance, attend caucus meetings or participate in the sparring of Question Period.
And the dilemmas faced by Mr. Fergus are a trifle compared to what Saskatchewan Speaker Randy Weekes says he has been dealing with.
A Saskatchewan Party MLA for a quarter-century, Mr. Weekes is no longer a card-carrying member of the party. Earlier this month, he posted a photo of his membership card cut in half.
The turmoil was foreshadowed in April, when Saskatchewan’s Finance Minister Donna Harpauer was forced to apologize in the House for a combative text she had sent him. The Speaker added he had received similar texts from other Saskatchewan Party MLAs, including Government House Leader Jeremy Harrison.
Mr. Harrison was the focus of the Speaker’s blistering speech on the last day of the legislative session this month. “My experience with the Government House Leader in the Chamber includes threatening gestures. Whenever I ruled against him during session, he would start yelling at me and stand up and flash his suit jacket and storm out,” the Speaker said.
Mr. Harrison has an obsession with firearms, sought permission to carry a handgun in the legislature and – based on a report from a security officer – actually brought a hunting rifle into the building, Mr. Weekes alleged.
But earlier this month, Premier Scott Moe spoke to Mr. Harrison, and then told reporters the allegations were “unequivocally false.” Mr. Moe also suggested Mr. Weekes is complaining because he’s on his way out; he lost the party’s nomination in the riding of Kindersley-Biggar last year.
It’s “the allegation of a sore loser,” the Premier said.
At least some of this proved to not quite be the case on Friday, when Mr. Harrison acknowledged bringing a cased long gun into the legislature a decade ago. He also announced he was stepping down as House Leader for the “lapse in judgment and for not advising the premier of this one occasion.”
In an interview with the CBC, Mr. Harrison also denied the allegation he wanted to bring in a handgun.
The Premier is staring down what will be a hotly contested election in the fall, where a number of incumbent Saskatchewan Party MLAs have announced they won’t run again. Mr. Moe likely doesn’t want to alienate anyone else in his conservative movement at this critical juncture, especially over a Speaker who has broken with the party and said in an interview with the Regina Leader-Post that “since Premier Scott Moe was elected, the party took a dramatic lurch to the right.”
In decidedly un-Speaker-like fashion, Mr. Weekes also weighed in on policy, noting the emergency debate last fall on the school pronoun policy wasn’t warranted, nor is the deeply controversial legislation itself.
But that’s no excuse. Mr. Moe must show he’s willing to do something to combat the creeping harassment of public officials that’s happening across the Western world – even if the source of the problem comes from within his own party. There should be more protection for the legislature’s chief presiding officer.
It would also be useful for Mr. Moe to show the decision to fight the federal carbon tax by not collecting and remitting the levy on home heating fuels is a principled move, and an exception to the rule – rather than proof of serial unruliness from his government.
The Opposition Saskatchewan NDP has written to the sergeant-at-arms, the chief firearms officer, and the Legislative District Security Unit for answers. But Mr. Moe himself should be pushing for a more thorough investigation of whether more of the dangerous-to-democracy allegations from Mr. Weekes are true. The higher road here isn’t hard to discern.