Elizabeth May addresses Speaker of the House rumours

Having won a minority government Monday, the federal Liberal Party might be shopping for a Speaker of the House outside of its roster of MPs.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May, the sole party member to have won her seat, says the speaker position is technically open to all MPs, and she’s left her name in the running before.

“I’ve never hidden or made any bones about the fact that I think I’d be a good speaker,” May told 1130 NewsRadio.

“But I’m not actively working on any such thing at the moment.”

May says she is willing to work with Prime Minister Mark Carney and any individual or party willing to “fix the things that we need to fix,” especially within the electoral system.

“One of the reasons this was such a weird election was that people were so motivated by so-called ‘strategic voting,’ which only happens because we have a dysfunctional voting system called first-past-the-post. It’s more than overdue that we move to fair voting and proportional representation, which Justin Trudeau promised back in 2015. That’s something I’d really like to work with Mark Carney on,” said May.

Being the only elected party member, May says, is familiar territory, and she can still be as effective as any MP.

“I was the only Green MP from 2011 til 2019, and I brought forward a private member’s bill for a Lyme disease strategy and got it passed into law. And I was there by myself. I managed to be the only MP who got reversals from the Harper administration when they tried to close a science centre in my riding … I know how Parliament works, and I’ve been successful. I was by myself before, getting many things done for my community and for the country, and I will keep doing
them.”

Though it’s not on her immediate horizon, if she were made Speaker of the House, May says she would work to improve decorum in Parliament.

She reminds the public that the current vote counts are preliminary.

“We don’t even know what the seat count is in Parliament, so it would be premature to be like calling people to run for Speaker at this point.”

—With files from Srushti Gangdev and Renee Bernard