Speaker’s firm hand needed in Victoria’s mad house
Speaker is going up against tradition — and Liberals angry he took the job
The people’s house is becoming an animal house in Victoria where the rookie Speaker of the B.C. legislature is struggling to keep control of his zoo.
Premier John Horgan was the latest to have his choke chain yanked by Speaker Darryl Plecas, after Horgan got fed up with the Liberals’ aggressive attacks in question period.
“It’s questions that want to inspire people in this house that are appreciated, not the crap that comes from the other side,” Horgan fumed.
That was one four-letter word too many for Plecas, who demanded Horgan withdraw the word “crap.” Horgan complied and crapped out, so to speak.
Seeing Plecas put his foot down with the NDP premier, however, didn’t provide much satisfaction for the Opposition Liberals.
They’re convinced that Plecas — a former Liberal MLA — is out to get them.
“There’s obviously a bias in that office,” griped interim Liberal leader Rich Coleman. “He’s an NDP Speaker, not a Speaker for the whole house.”
The bitterness goes back to September, when Plecas shocked his former Liberal colleagues by agreeing to take the Speaker’s job.
That removed a Liberal vote in the legislature, helping ensure the survival of the NDPGreen governing alliance in the closely divided house.
Now the Liberals are even angrier at Plecas after he ordered them last week to stop calling NDP cabinet ministers by “mocking or derogatory titles.”
It all started when the Liberals dubbed NDP Agriculture Minister Lana Popham “the minister of intimidation” after she wrote a threatening letter to a salmon farm. More mocking job titles followed. Transportation Minister Claire Trevena became “the minister of gridlock.” Jobs Minister Bruce Ralston was re-named “the minister of job loss.” Horgan was tagged “the minister of defence” after he stood up to answer questions directed at his own cabinet ministers when things got too hot.
Plecas finally intervened, banning the use of fake job titles on pain of being expelled from the legislature. The NDP and Greens, of course, says that’s OK with them.
“The Speaker makes his rulings and everyone has to respect that,” said NDP house leader Mike Farnworth, adding the tables were turned when the Liberals were in power.
Back then, Farnworth said, then-speaker Linda Reid ordered the NDP to stop accusing Liberal cabinet ministers of “misleading” the legislature.
“We didn’t agree with her, because we weren’t accusing them of ‘lying’ or ‘deliberately’ misleading the house,” he said. “But that was her ruling, we had to live with it and it was fine.”
But the current Speaker’s ruling is far from fine with the Liberals, who are still seething at their former colleague.
“There’s nothing we’ve been doing in there that hasn’t been done for a long time,” said Coleman. “The NDP used to do the same thing to me. They would call me ‘the minister of bullying’ or whatever. It never bothered me. I just smiled and answered their questions.”
A check of the Hansard records reveals many examples of what he speaks.
Horgan called Liberal MLA Andrew Wilkinson “the minister of propaganda” back when Wilkinson was in charge of government advertising.
Shane Simpson, now an NDP cabinet minister, called then-finance-minister Mike de Jong “the minister of broken promises.” The NDP’s Norm Macdonald called Liberal forests ministers Steve Thomson “the minister of lost jobs.”
There are multiple examples of the New Democrats calling former Liberal premier Gordon Campbell “the minister of defence.”
And it’s probably impossible to count how many times NDP politicians called Christy Clark “Premier Photo-Op”.
None of those phoney job titles triggered a rebuke from the Speaker back then. So why is it a banishment offence today?
The answer is every Speaker is different and makes his or her own rulings. But Plecas is drawing a line that hasn’t been drawn before in a legislature known as one of the most boisterous in Canada, where heckling is the norm.
“We apparently have a Speaker without a sense of humour,” said Coleman. “Clever language and heckling goes on all the time.”
Coleman ought to know. He’s the same guy who once accused an NDP rival of “yapping like a little dog.”
Former NDP MLA Joy MacPhail once called Liberal Gary Collins “the finance minister bully boy.”
And even former independent MLA Vicki Huntington, known for her mild manner, once implored the Speaker to take action against the ever-heckling Liberals.
“Madame Speaker,” Huntington said. “I sometimes just wish you could bop the members opposite on the head.”
No MLAs have been bopped, though certain words have been banned from the legislature’s stately halls over the years.
Way back in 1976, Social Credit MLA Harvey Schroeder was having a tough time controlling his squabbling colleagues in a committee that he chaired, so he issued a list of words not to be uttered.
The banned words and phrases included: Crackpot, chintzy, cowardly, arrogant, despicable, turncoat, pipsqueak, buffoon, deceitful, guttersnipe, fumbling old man, Mr. Magoo and two-bit phoney.
All of which suggests that things were a lot nastier back in the day.
Still, that doesn’t prevent some legislature tour guides from warning visiting schoolchildren before they witness question period: “Remember kids: Don’t behave like this when you get back to class.”
It seems Plecas is determined to make the place a bit more civil.
But he could have a tough time convincing former Liberal colleagues still furious at his betrayal.