By Canadian Press

Speaker says Philpott’s caucus ejection not a matter of MP privilege

Apr 11, 2019 | 8:59 AM

OTTAWA — House of Commons Speaker Geoff Regan says the parliamentary privileges of former cabinet minister Jane Philpott were not violated when Prime Minister Justin Trudeau decided last week she would no longer be allowed to sit as a Liberal MP.

Regan says in a ruling issued this morning that he has no role in deciding how caucuses conduct themselves.

Philpott says Trudeau did not follow changes to the Parliament of Canada Act made in 2015 that required each party caucus to have recorded votes after the last election on whether to adopt rules in the act laying out how caucus members could be removed or reinstated.

The idea was to give MPs more power in their caucus rooms, rather than leave such decisions entirely up to the party leaders.

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The Liberals never had such a vote, deciding in 2015 to defer the matter to a party convention instead, but ultimately informed the speaker they had implicitly chosen not to use the new rules.

Regan says the speaker has no authority to interpret the results of a caucus decision or whether the law was followed.

The Canadian Press