Mr. Chair, right hon. Prime Minister, Leader of the Opposition, leader of the Bloc Québécois, leader of the NDP, leader of the Green Party, hon. colleagues, hon. candidates, dear friends, it is a privilege for me to rise in the House today as an official candidate for Speaker of the House of Commons.

Colleagues, I am running for this position because I want to follow in the footsteps of the extraordinary men and women who came before me in service of us all. Two of those extraordinary men are here in the chamber with us: the hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle and the hon. member for Nipissing—Timiskaming.

Honourable colleagues, to stand here as a candidate for Speaker means to stand for the candidacy of the custodian and the guardian of this sacred democratic chamber. It is not lost on me that I do so 71 years after my grandfather, Luis Gonzalez, fled Spain under dictatorial rule, boarding a ship called the Anna Salen in search of a place where he could speak freely, where he could send a representative to speak on his behalf, arriving on the shores of Halifax on December 29, 1952.

This past weekend, my daughter Ellie, who just turned seven, asked me what I was doing. I told her that I was running for speakership of this place. She is too young to understand what that means. She is too young to fully grasp the significance of the work that we do here every single day, but she will understand it one day. Colleagues, if you are asking me for my two reasons for running to be the 38th Speaker, there they are: to be your servant as we honour those who sought this place out in generations past and to be your servant to help build an even stronger democratic institution for my children, your children and future generations of Canadians.

Colleagues, we are at a pivotal moment in Canadian history. I truly feel that. Through the conversations that I have had with so many of you over the weekend, I know that you feel that way, too. We have the work ahead of us of rebuilding trust in this place among members, of rebuilding trust that Canadians have in this place, of rebuilding trust that our allies and friends around the world have in us. As your Speaker, that will be my primary priority.

First and foremost, I seek to put in place a policy that will ensure due diligence, so that when I rise as your Speaker to ask hon. members to rise on behalf of somebody who is in the gallery, you can do so with trust and with confidence. I pledge to you that within one week of being elected your Speaker, I will invite Jewish community leaders from across the country, as well as veterans groups that are also affected by what happened that Friday, to this place, to apologize as your Speaker on behalf of all members of this House. I pledge that I will send a communiqué within one week of being elected Speaker to the hon. Speaker of the Parliament of Ukraine, informing him of my intentions to apologize to him and the members of the Ukrainian Parliament.

I believe these to be diligent measures and ones that are necessary if we seek to move on and truly reconcile with what occurred on September 22. Just as important will be my work to ensure that your right to speak freely in this place is defended. The story goes that the distance between the Right Hon. Prime Minister's desk and the desk of the leader of the official opposition was measured in such a way to be the distance of two duelling individuals, their swords drawn, with one inch added in the middle, that inch to symbolize that in this place we solve our differences not through violence but through discourse, dialogue and debate.

As your Speaker, I vow to do everything that I can within the powers and the tools available to me as Speaker, to ensure that when you come to this place every single day to do the hard work for Canadians, you are able to do that, to share your gift, the gift that your constituents saw in you and the reason they sent you here: to be able to share that gift unimpeded and without fear of intimidation.

Hon. colleagues, since 2015, I have had the privilege of working with you as the proud member for Vaudreuil—Soulanges, as the parliamentary secretary on four different portfolios and as the chair of a committee. I hope that those I have had the chance to work with could see that I am a fair and transparent person. I come here every day with the intention of working with you, regardless of which party you belong to, to find solutions for improving Canadians' quality of life.

Hon. colleagues, I sincerely thank you for giving me the opportunity to address you today.

Colleagues, I hope you will give me the grand honour of being the 38th Speaker of this House of Commons.

Peter Schiefke

$540,245.00