The Speaker is MPP Dave Levac from Brant.
Folks, the Speaker invited us into his APARTMENT IN THE LEGISLATIVE BUILDING to have lunch! Do you realize how COOL THIS IS!!!!!!!??????
We walked into one of the rooms in his hallway and it was his (as he told us excitedly) PLAYROOM! Where he likes to play........... HOUSE (get it? House? As in what the MPPs call the Chamber!!!)!!!!! HAHAHAHAHA!!!!! How funny is this guy?
The room had pictures on the walls. One of them was really cool. It was of the first ever parliament of Upper Canada. It was a big, long and narrow room with a curved wall at the end with BIG WINDOWS! There was a really LOOOOOONG table in the middle of the room with high backed green chairs. At the end of the table was another table with the food on it. Chicken fingers, fries, hamburgers and vegetables. The Speaker said that if we didn't eat our vegetables, he'd eat us! :D He has such a funny sense of humour. Seriously!
So we sat down to eat. The Speaker said we'd better eat everything on our plates because he made it all himself. But I doubt that. And as coincidence would have it, they just happen to sell chicken fingers, burgers and veggies in the dining room! :D
While we ate, we talked to him about his job as Speaker.
He had really creative and funny answers to all of our questions.
Page Question: Prior to becoming an MPP I heard you were involved in education?
Speaker: You heard I was involved in education.
Page: Yes. So I was wondering what type of education?
Speaker: I was a teacher. I was a very mean teacher. I ate my students.
Page: Really?
Speaker: Yes. And then I was a principal. Everyone liked me as a principal because if they didn't, I would eat them.
He is REALLY FUNNY!!!!!!
Page Question: What is your favourite part of being Speaker?
Speaker: Having lunch with the Pages.
Page Question: What's your favourite part of the Chamber?
Speaker: Sitting on the Dias so I can be with the Pages.
I think he gets his sense of humour from the fact that he wanted to be an entertainer when he was young. He was in a group of entertainers for a while. During our lunch he sang, and he also talked in a whole bunch of really funny voices!
I think that to be the Speaker you have to have a sense of humour because things can get pretty tense and argumentative and you have to calm things down a little. So sometimes he'll stand up in Question Period and say something so surprising like this week when everyone was shouting and arguing and carrying on so he said...
"I'm going to do something a little unorthodox and ask you all to stand up and jump and shout for 5 minutes. Maybe that will get it all out of your systems".
Or last week when he said....
"Member from Northumberland Quinte West come to order! Member from Bruce Grey - Owen Sound come to order! Member from Renfrew Nippissing Pembroke come to order! And ..... oh..... just the whole PC Caucus come to order!!!"
If you've ever watched Question Period on the Legislative Assembly Channel or on the website, you see that he uses his sense of humour a lot! :D
He also gave some really good answers to the questions we had during our lunch. We learned that he can't go to the Liberal Caucus meetings because he has to remain non-partisan. He can't know what they will be talking about in the Chamber.
The only time that the Speaker gets to vote is when there is a tie. It's interesting because he doesn't just vote for what he actually thinks should happen. His vote sort of depends on the circumstance. If it is a bill that is in first reading, no matter if he agrees with it or not, he will vote against it (even if his party is voting FOR it) because the bill will then have an opportunity to be reintroduced and debated again. If it is a tie vote on a bill on its second reading (even if he voted against it in a tie on the first reading) he has to vote to pass it so that there can be more debate. If it is a bill on its third reading and a tie, he will vote against it so that there can be more debate. So his job isn't to make a tie-breaking decision, it's to use the tie to have more debate on the bill so that the parties can actually decision.
He also gave us lots of neat information. For instance, he talked about Wig Bags. I said WIG BAGS, not wind bags (though there are a few of those in the House :D :D :D)
What's a Wig Bag you ask?
In the old days in Britain, judges and lawyers and politicians and important people wore really big wigs. This is where the expression being a "BIG WIG" comes from... meaning you are important.
Back then, they didn't know how to treat or cure head lice. Every day, the politicians and other big wigs would powder their wigs with lime (not the fruit, the powder) to help keep lice away. The problem is that wigs had long tails that ran down your back. When you took your wig off you would have a long line of powder down your black robe (like a skunk stripe!). Clearly this is a fashion faux pas! So wig bags were invented! The bag sat on your back up high near your shoulders. They would tuck the tail of the wig into the bag so the powder would drop into the bag instead of down your robe. Did you know that they still have wig bags on the back of the Speaker, Clerks and Sargeant-at-Arms robes (but they don't really use them because they don't wear wigs anymore).
We also learned about tri-corn hats. Tri-corn hats are also a British thing. They have three points on them that are tied together at the top
The Sargeant-At-Arms (Dennis Clark) in his tri-corn hat
British farmers used to wear them but they didn't tie the corners up on top of their heads. If you untie a tri-corn and flatten it down, it makes a really big rim that goes around your head. This protected the farmers from the sun. If it rained, since the hats were originally made of straw, the brims would droop down and cover their faces so they couldn't see... so if it did rain, they just tied up those corners on top of their head! Tri-corn comes from the words tri (which means 3) and corn (short for corner).
The Speaker, the Clerks and the Sargeant At Arms all wear their tri-corn hats today when they come into the Chamber.
I wondered how he represents his Riding of Brant while he's the Speaker. In the MPP Constituency offices, they all have to be non-partisan. Since the Speaker is always non-partisan, he can still work in his office. When he wants to present a bill or a petition, he has another MPP to present it for him.
I asked him if he'd ever had to exercise his right to remove someone from the Chamber and wasn't all that surprise with his answer. Yes, he has had to throw people out. 4 times, in fact. Twice it was the same person (MPP Yakabuski who is well known for sharing his opinions out loud and LOUDLY for everyone to hear)!
I came away from my lunch with the Speaker really appreciating how hard it is for him to remain non-partisan and keep order in the Chamber. I admire his sense of humour and the way he can talk to everyone.
MPP Dave Levac, Speaker of the House
Today I feel so lucky to be here and to have the chance to talk and spend time with two people who are really important to our Province and our politics.
--- PeyThePEYge
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