The Speaker of the Canadian House of Commons election, 2015 was held on December 3, 2015, at the beginning of the first session of the 42nd Canadian House of Commons, following the 2015 federal election. Geoff Regan, the Liberal MP for Halifax West won.
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Regan replaced Conservative MP Andrew Scheer, the incumbent Speaker who was re-elected to his riding in Regina—Qu'Appelle, although the incumbent Conservative government was defeated and became the Official Opposition. Scheer initially did not say if he would run for Speaker, but on November 18, 2015 he was appointed Opposition House Leader by Interim Conservative Leader Rona Ambrose.
Process
Speakers are elected by secret, preferential ballot of all MPs. All MPs except for Cabinet ministers and party leaders are eligible to run for the Speakership and are automatically placed on the ballot unless they withdraw their name. Any MP not wishing to put his or her name forward must issue a letter withdrawing from the ballot by the day before the vote. All MPs who do not remove their name from the ballot as of 6 pm the day before the election are listed as candidates on the ballot. MPs who subsequently decide not to run or whose letters of withdrawal were, for whatever reason, not received have an additional opportunity to remove their names from consideration on the floor of the Commons. Candidates are then allowed a five-minute speech to persuade their colleagues as to why they should be elected.
The election is presided over by the Dean of the House (the longest continuously serving MP who is not in Cabinet), in this case Louis Plamondon.
Once the ballots are issued, MPs rank the candidates in order of preference rather than voting for a single candidate. Votes are initially distributed based on each elector's first preference. If a candidate secures more than half of votes cast, that candidate wins. Otherwise, the candidate with the fewest votes is eliminated. Ballots assigned to the eliminated candidate are recounted and added to the totals of the remaining candidates based on who is ranked next on each ballot. This process continues until one candidate wins by obtaining more than half the votes. If a voter ranks some, but not all of the candidates, the ballot is counted until it is exhausted (i.e., it can no longer be distributed to a remaining candidate).
The winner is escorted to the Speaker's chair by the Prime Minister and Leader of the Official Opposition. The newly elected Speaker, by tradition, feigns reluctance as he or she is "dragged" to the chair in a practice dating from the days when British Speakers risked execution if the news they reported to the King was displeasing.
Candidates
These MPs have indicated they will contest the election for House Speaker.
Newly elected Liberal MP Robert-Falcon Ouellette (Winnipeg Centre) withdrew his candidacy on November 29, 2015, a day after making controversial remarks at a public meeting about the Speaker's role and influence. On November 30, Liberal MP Mauril Bélanger (Ottawa—Vanier), withdrew his candidacy for the speakership after learning he had been diagnosed with Lou Gehrig's disease.
Results
Vote tallies after each round are not disclosed. Unlike previous elections in which the presiding officer announces the winner if one candidate obtains a majority or lists the members eligible for the next ballot (i.e., those not eliminated in the preceding ballot), a preferential ballot was used with only the name of the victor, Geoff Regan, being disclosed once the counts were complete.
Conservative Bruce Stanton would later go on to be appointed Deputy Speaker and Chair of the Committees of the Whole, the only candidate for Speaker to obtain a Deputy Speaker role.