Conservatives call on Commons Speaker to resign, say he let Trudeau cross the line

Conservative MPs want House of Commons Speaker Greg Fergus to resign after ejecting their leader — and not Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — during a heated debate Tuesday.

The Conservatives say Fergus did not apply the rules equally during a tense back and forth between Trudeau and Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre.

Poilievre was kicked out of the chamber after he called Trudeau a “wacko prime minister” and refused Fergus’s request to withdraw the remark.

The insult was hurled as Poilievre pressed Trudeau to agree to British Columbia’s request to amend a Health Canada provision decriminalizing public possession of hard drugs like heroin and fentanyl.

Trudeau instead shot back that Poilievre did not deserve elected office, accusing him of courting far-right extremists.

Last week videos emerged of Poilievre visiting a carbon price protest camp in Atlantic Canada where one of the trailers featured a drawing of a symbol belonging to the far-right online group Diagolon.

Conservative MP John Brassard says Trudeau used “undignified” language by inferring that Tories are connected to white nationalists.

Michael Barrett, the party’s ethics critic in Parliament, says equal rules must be applied in the House when the prime minister is delivering what Barrett calls “personal insults” instead of defending his drug policy.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 1, 2024.

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