Trudeau Liberal MP Greg Fergus was appointed as House Speaker after his predecessor Anthony Rota resigned from the role for unintentionally inviting and recognizing a Nazi veteran as a “war hero” during Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s visit in the House of Commons.
Before becoming Speaker, Fergus was Trudeau’s parliamentary secretary, where he assisted the PM in his duties and represented Trudeau in the House of Commons.
Five facts on Fergus
- Ethics law violation
While serving as parliamentary secretary, Fergus violated parliamentary ethics laws after he wrote a letter to the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission urging them to approve a specific company’s request for mandatory carriage in Quebec.
This prompted then-ethics commissioner Mario Dion to call on Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to require mandatory ethics training for all Liberal cabinet ministers and parliamentary secretaries.
“I am quite concerned that someone with the breadth of experience of Mr. Fergus would fail to recognize the possibility of a contravention,” Dion said.
- Stance on Elbowgate
In 2016, after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau aggressively elbowed MP Ruth Ellen Brosseau of the New Democratic Party during a heated debate in the House of Commons, Fergus defended Trudeau. Fergus suggested that the incident was overblown, equating the reaction from Brosseau to a World Cup soccer dive.
- Smearing of Freedom Convoy protesters
Fergus carried water for Trudeau in 2021 while serving as his parliamentary secretary, helping Trudeau perpetuate his January 6-like framing of the Freedom Convoy protests.
Speaking in the House, Fergus lied about the protesters, claiming they “tolerated” the mysterious Confederate and Nazi flag holders. However, footage shows that the masked men holding the flags unveiled them only briefly and were subsequently told to leave by protesters.
Fergus said of the Freedom Convoy protesters, while he knew they weren’t all racists, “In my heart I was left wondering, who else supports this flag?”
- Support of BLM
Fergus is a supporter of the radical Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and has often referred to Canada as systemically racist.
During the protests over the death of George Floyd, Fergus took a knee alongside Trudeau to show support for BLM.
The BLM protests resulted in several parts of America getting burned down, during the months after Floyd’s murder and before the 2020 US election.
In fact, at least twenty-five Americans were killed during the protests and riots.
- Filibuster Fergus
During the WE Charity scandal of 2020, Fergus helped filibuster an ethics committee meeting so that a decision to investigate Trudeau’s speaking contracts could be delayed.
The scandal involved a $912-million contract that was awarded to WE, a charity with close personal ties to Trudeau and his family and then-finance minister Bill Morneau.
At the ethics committee meeting in question, Fergus rambled for 30 minutes, at times speaking in Latin and referencing ancient Greece.
