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Peter Andrew Stewart Milliken, MP (born November 12, 1946) is a Canadian lawyer and politician. He has been a member of the Canadian House of Commons since 1988, and has served as Speaker of the House since 2001. Milliken represents the Ontario riding of Kingston and the Islands as a member of the Liberal Party. As Speaker of the House of Commons, he is entitled to be styled The Honourable while in office. On October 12, 2009, he became the longest serving Speaker in the history of the Canadian House of Commons.[1] Milliken is the cousin of John Matheson, a former Liberal Member of Parliament (MP) best known for his prominent role in adopting the red maple leaf as the Flag of Canada.[2]
[edit] Early life and careerMilliken was born in Kingston, Ontario, the eldest of seven children to a physician father,[3] and is a descendant of United Empire Loyalists who left the new United States of America after the American Revolution. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Political Science and Economics from Queen's University (1968), a Bachelor of Arts (1970) and Master of Arts (1978) in Jurisprudence from Oxford University in England, and a Bachelor of Laws (1971) degree from Dalhousie University.[4] He was active in student politics, and served a year as speaker of the student government's assembly at Queen's. In 1967-68, he worked as a special assistant to federal cabinet minister George J. McIlraith.[5] Called to the Ontario Bar in 1973, Milliken was a partner in a prestigious Kingston law firm before entering political life. He also lectured on a part-time basis at the Queen's University School of Business from 1973 to 1981, became a governor of the Kingston General Hospital in 1977, and has been a trustee with the Chalmers United Church.[6] As a consultant, he produced the Milliken Report on the future of Queen's University athletics in the late 1970s. A fan of classical music, he has sung with the Pro Arte Singers and the Chalmers United Church Choir as well as serving on the board of the Kingston Symphony Orchestra.[7] He also often canoes, taking week long trips in northern Canada.[8] In 2001, he was awarded an honorary Bachelor of Laws degree from the State University of New York at Potsdam.[9] He is an honorary member of the Royal Military College of Canada, and an Honorary Patron of Choirs Ontario. Milliken has long been active in political matters, having served as president of the Kingston and the Islands provincial Liberal Party Association in the 1980s. He subscribed to the Canadian House of Commons Hansard at age sixteen, and once wrote a thesis paper on Question Period.[10] Unlike most MPs, he was already well-versed in parliamentary procedure at the time of his first election.[11] [edit] Member of ParliamentMilliken won the Kingston and the Islands Liberal nomination in 1988 over local alderman Alex Lampropoulos,[12] and defeated well-known Progressive Conservative cabinet minister Flora MacDonald by 2,712 votes in the 1988 general election. The Progressive Conservatives won the election with a majority government, and in early 1989 Milliken was named as the Liberal Party's critic for electoral reform, associate critic for senior citizens, and whip for eastern and northern Ontario.[13] Shortly thereafter, he was named to the parliamentary standing committee on elections, privileges, procedures and private members' business.[14] He supported Jean Chrétien for the federal Liberal leadership in 1990.[15] He was easily re-elected in the 1993 election, as the Liberal Party won a majority government, and was named to a two-year term as parliamentary secretary to the Government House Leader in December 1993. He also became chair of the Commons procedure and House affairs committee.[16] Milliken was a leading candidate for Speaker of the House in January 1994, but lost to Gilbert Parent. Milliken supported fellow Kingstonian John Gerretsen for the leadership of the Ontario Liberal Party in 1996 and moved to the camp of the eventual winner, Dalton McGuinty, after Gerretsen was eliminated on the second ballot.[17] In the same year, Milliken and fellow Liberal MP John Godfrey introduced the Godfrey-Milliken Bill as a satirical response to the American Helms-Burton Act.[18] The Bill, which would have allowed the descendants of United Empire Loyalists to claim compensation for land seized in the American Revolution, was drafted in response to provisions in the Helms-Burton Act which sought to punish Canadian companies for using land nationalised by Fidel Castro's government in Cuba.[19] Godfrey and Milliken gave a twenty-minute presentation on their bill in Washington, D.C. in early 1997, and were greeted with warm applause from local Helms-Burton opponents.[20] Milliken was re-elected for a third term in 1997 election, and became Deputy Speaker of the House for the parliament that followed.[21] [edit] Speaker of the House Milliken was elected Speaker of the House in late January 2001, after five ballots of a secret vote of all MPs held at the first sitting of parliament following the 2000 federal election.[22] He was widely praised by government and opposition MPs for his rulings, which were considered very fair.[23] He also brought new life to the chair in delivering his rulings and remarks with a sarcastic humour. Elected for his fifth term in 2004, he was the unanimous choice of MPs to be re-elected Speaker for the next parliament.[24] In 2005, Milliken prevented an early federal election by breaking a tie vote on the second reading of Bill C-48, an amendment to the 2005 federal budget, which was a confidence motion. The vote was 152 in favour and 152 against prior to his vote, and he voted in favour of the bill. The Speaker does not vote except in the case of a tie, and must vote in such a way as to keep the matter open for further consideration if possible (ie. passing C-48 to allow further debate for a third reading). This was the first time that a Speaker used his tie-breaker vote on a confidence motion.[25]
Milliken won his riding for a sixth time in the 2006 election, as the Conservative Party won a minority government nationally. Though his party is no longer in government, he was re-elected as Speaker of the House for the 39th Parliament on April 3, 2006, defeating fellow Liberals Diane Marleau and Marcel Proulx on the first ballot.[26] With his re-election, he became only the second Speaker chosen from an opposition party in the history of the House of Commons (James Jerome being the other).[27] In February 2007, Milliken rejected the Conservative government's challenge of an opposition bill that commits the government to implement the Kyoto Accord. The government argued that the bill introduced new spending, and could not be introduced by someone who was not a minister. Milliken ruled that the bill did not specifically commit the government to any new spending, and was therefore in order. The bill was approved by the house, despite government opposition.[28] Milliken was re-elected for a seventh term in the 2008 federal election. On November 18, after five ballots, he was elected for the fourth time as Speaker. On October 12, 2009, he became the longest serving speaker in Canadian history.[29] As Speaker, Milliken only votes in order to break a tie. Speakers of the House of Commons have only needed to vote eleven times in Canadian parliamentary history. Milliken has done so on six occasions, more than any previous Speaker.[1] [edit] Tables of offices held
[edit] External links
[edit] Electoral record
All electoral information is taken from Elections Canada. Italicized expenditures from elections after 1997 refer to submitted totals, and are presented when the final reviewed totals are not available. Expenditures from 1997 refer to submitted totals. [edit] Footnotes
Categories: Speakers of the Canadian House of Commons | Liberal Party of Canada MPs | Members of the Canadian House of Commons from Ontario | Lawyers in Ontario | Dalhousie Law School graduates | Queen's University alumni | Queen's University faculty | Members of the United Church of Canada | People from Kingston, Ontario | People of United Empire Loyalist descent | 1946 births | Living people | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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