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Liberal caucus to consider process for removing an unpopular party leader

Liberal caucus to consider process for removing an unpopular party leader

Yahoo25-05-2025

OTTAWA — The Liberal caucus is gathering today on Parliament Hill for the first time since the April election to prepare for the start of Parliament — and to decide whether to adopt a process to eject a party leader unwilling to leave.
The meeting follows Liberal MPs' roller-coaster experience with former leader Justin Trudeau, who rejected calls from caucus for him to step down before finally announcing his resignation a few weeks after his finance minister Chrystia Freeland quit in December.
The caucus is expected to vote on whether to adopt the Reform Act for the first time, although that vote would not place Prime Minister Mark Carney in any danger any time soon.
Adopting the Reform Act would give Liberal MPs a method to remove a party leader — the same method the Conservatives used to oust Erin O'Toole from the leadership after the Tories lost the 2021 election.
If adopted, it would mean just a fifth of the party's MPs could move to trigger a leadership review.
That would allow MPs to boot their leader if a majority of the caucus votes to do so in a secret ballot.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 25, 2025.
The Canadian Press

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New Zealand Parliament suspends 3 Māori Party lawmakers for haka protest
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  • Hamilton Spectator

New Zealand Parliament suspends 3 Māori Party lawmakers for haka protest

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As Māori language and culture have become part of mainstream New Zealand in recent years, haka appear in a range of cultural, somber and celebratory settings. They also have rung out in Parliament to welcome the passage of high-profile laws. Some who decried the protest haka in Parliament cited its timing, with Maipi-Clarke beginning the chant as votes were being tallied and causing a brief suspension of proceedings. She has privately apologized for the disruption to Parliament's Speaker, she said Thursday. A few lawmakers urged their peers to consider rewriting rules about what lawmakers could do in Parliament to recognize Māori cultural protocols as accepted forms of protest. One cited changes to allow breastfeeding in the debating chamber as evidence the institution had amended rules before. Who approved the suspensions Normally the parliamentary committee that decides on punishments for errant lawmakers is in agreement on what should happen to them. 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New Zealand Parliament votes for record suspensions of 3 lawmakers who performed Māori haka protest
New Zealand Parliament votes for record suspensions of 3 lawmakers who performed Māori haka protest

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timean hour ago

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New Zealand Parliament votes for record suspensions of 3 lawmakers who performed Māori haka protest

New Zealand legislators voted Thursday to enact record suspensions from Parliament for three lawmakers who performed a Māori haka to protest a proposed law. Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke received a seven-day ban and the leaders of her political party, Debbie Ngarewa-Packer and Rawiri Waititi, were barred for 21 days. Three days had been the longest ban for a lawmaker from New Zealand's Parliament before. The lawmakers from Te Pāti Māori, the Māori Party, performed the haka, a chanting dance of challenge, last November to oppose a widely unpopular bill, now defeated, that they said would reverse Indigenous rights. But the protest drew global headlines and provoked months of fraught debate among lawmakers about what the consequences for the lawmakers' actions should be and whether New Zealand's Parliament welcomed or valued Māori culture — or felt threatened by it. A committee of the lawmakers' peers in April recommended the lengthy punishments in a report that said the lawmakers were not being punished for the haka itself, but for striding across the floor of the debating chamber towards their opponents while they did it. Maipi-Clarke Thursday rejected that, citing other instances where legislators have left their seats and approached their opponents without sanction. It was expected that the suspensions would be approved, because government parties have more seats in Parliament than the opposition and had the necessary votes to affirm them. But the punishment was so severe that Parliament Speaker Gerry Brownlee in April ordered a free-ranging debate among lawmakers and urged them to attempt to reach a consensus on what repercussions were appropriate. No such accord was reached Thursday. During hours of at times emotional speeches, government lawmakers rejected opposition proposals for lighter sanctions. There were suggestions that opposition lawmakers might extend the debate for days or even longer through filibuster-style speeches, but with the outcome already certain and no one's mind changed, all lawmakers agreed that the debate should end.

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Yahoo

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Steel firms, workers to meet with MPs in Ottawa urging tariff action against U.S.

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