The Speaker is under attack again — maybe it's time for a more independent approach

The Conservative Party sent a note to supporters on Tuesday afternoon with the subject line, «Help fire the Speaker.»

«Greg Fergus, Speaker of the House of Commons, has shown complete disregard for the non-partisan requirement for his job,» the party wrote, asking supporters to register their agreement with a statement calling on Fergus to resign.

The Conservatives have been on record calling for Fergus to resign for five months now. Their newest complaint concerns the «very partisan» and «inflammatory» language included in an ad on the Liberal Party's website for an event hosted by Fergus in his riding.

While the Speaker does not sit with their party caucus while presiding over the House, they are allowed to run under their party banner in a general election. So there's nothing inherently wrong with Fergus hosting a reception for supporters and volunteers in his riding (for good measure, Fergus's office says the Speaker consulted the parliamentary law clerk before agreeing to the event).

The Conservatives did have solid grounds to complain about partisan language in the ad. But Fergus's office quickly claimed it had nothing to do with how the Liberal Party promoted the event. By Tuesday afternoon, the party had publicly apologized to Fergus for attaching some partisan boilerplate to the event listing.

If this had been the first run-in between Fergus and the Conservatives, it might not have amounted to much more than a minor kerfuffle. But for the Conservatives, this is just the latest reason to indict both Fergus and his predecessor, Anthony Rota.

The Conservatives' problems with two Liberal Speakers

Fergus and the Official Opposition first clashed mere days after he took the chair last fall. The Conservatives loudly objected