The House of Commons' crazy ancient power to shame transgressors
Tradition dating back to at least the Middle Ages
On Wednesday, Canadians were witness to their Parliament performing a ritual seemingly pulled from the 18th century.
The Sergeant- at- Arms — a man whose uniform includes a sword and a bicorne hat — hauled a private citizen before the assembled House of Commons for a public scolding.
The visibly exhausted man was then ordered to remain standing to “receive an admonishment.”
Speaker of the House of Commons Greg Fergus called for silence in the Chamber, before detailing the various ancient customs that the man had violated to warrant his summoning.
“For all these reasons, on behalf of the House of Commons, I admonish you,” said Fergus.
In a Parliament filled with inherited traditions, admonishment is among the oldest. A feature of English parliaments since at least the Middle Ages, it's likely a procedural relic of the days when a wayward villager would be called before a council of elders.
The target of Wednesday's admonishment was Kristian Firth, co-founder of GC Strategies, the single greatest beneficiary of federal overspending on the ArriveCan app.
The powers to call an admonishment are enshrined in the British North America Act, the 1867 blueprint that forms the core of Canada's Constitution.
According to the act, the “Privileges, Immunities, and Powers” of Canadian parliamentarians “shall never exceed” those that were held by the U. K. Parliament at the moment of Canada's creation.
In other words, if a British MP was allowed to do something in 1867, it's fair game for a Canadian MP in 2024.
The technical term for the procedure is the summoning of a “stranger” to “the bar of the House of Commons.”
The Canadian House of Commons — like most Westminster parliaments — is equipped with a literal brass bar that functions as a barrier between them and the rest of civil society.
Within the boundaries of this bar are the sworn representatives of the King subject to various special privileges available to nobody else. For instance, you can utter defamatory statements in the House of Commons without getting sued.
It's a deliberate sleight at Firth that he was called “to” the bar, rather than being invited into the Chamber itself. By keeping him on the non-privileged side of the brass rail, Parliamentarians are signalling that he is an accused transgressor who must answer to the Crown.
Canada hasn't called a private citizen to the bar since 1913, when admonishment was used against R. J. Miller, a utilities contractor accused of offering bribes to MPs. When Miller refused to answer MPs' questions, he was jailed for four months.
The House of Commons mostly used Firth's admonishment to grill him with questions — although the procedure did lean into public humiliation at times.
“Aren't you ashamed?” Firth was asked by Saanich- Gulf Islands MP Elizabeth May.
Firth responded by asking if he had to answer the question. When Fergus told him, “Yes, you do,” Firth said, “I am not ashamed.”
Firth actually got off lucky in that he was offered a chair and a desk after his initial admonishment. Right up until the 19th century, the British tradition was to force someone to kneel in submission to the House for the duration.
And if the House had wanted to, it's within the realm of possibility that they could have sentenced Firth to jail or slapped him with a fine.
It's never been done in Canada, but the U.K. is very clear in giving “penal jurisdiction” to its Parliament.
“If non- members improperly interfere with Parliament or its members or officers in discharging their public duties, Parliament for its own protection must have power to take appropriate action in response,” reads an official U.K. parliamentary guide.
U. K. MPs are told they have “inherent powers of punishment over non-members,” so long as the punishments are “reasonable.”
To be sure, the House of Commons can't summon just anyone to the bar.
It has to be someone who has been accused of obstructing the workings of Parliament and impeding “the ability of members to carry out their parliamentary duties.”
In Firth's case, it was because he provided insufficient testimony during an appearance before the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.
His official admonishment chastised him for “your refusal to answer certain questions and for prevaricating in your answers.”
But interfering with parliamentary duties is an incredibly broad charge, and citizens have been called to the bar for infractions as simple as insulting an MP.
In 1879, a visitor to the House of Commons' public gallery was called to the bar after he was heard delivering “offensive remarks to a Member.”
“As a result, he was summoned to appear at the Bar, whereupon he apologized,” reads a summary in the House of Commons' official procedures guide.
In 1906, the House of Commons called someone to the bar simply because they didn't like something he'd written in the newspaper. Joseph Ernest Eugène CinqMars (who appears to have gone on to become a war hero just 10 years later) was peppered with questions, issued an official note of censure and then “discharged.”
Admonishment was last used in the U.K. in 1957, and they too used it to yell at a journalist they didn't like.
At the time, Britain was still reeling from the aftermath of the Suez Crisis, an abortive Anglo- French- Israeli conspiracy to retake the Suez Canal from Egypt — which had nationalized it the year before.
Amid the British fuel rationing that followed the debacle, Sunday Express columnist John Junor condemned MPs for still enjoying generous petrol rations while everybody else had to suffer.
For questioning the gas consumption of Parliament, Junor was called to the bar.
According to the U.K. Parliamentary Archives, Junor “apologized for his actions although he stressed that, `In my judgment these allowances were a proper and, indeed, an inescapable subject of comment in a free Press'.”
THE HOUSE CAN'T SUMMON JUST ANYONE TO THE BAR.