Canada's House of Commons is set to vote for a new speaker after the previous speaker, Anthony Rota, resigned due to controversy surrounding his invitation to a former Nazi soldier to a parliamentary session in honor of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy.
Rota had unknowingly invited Yaroslav Hunka, a 98-year-old Polish-born Ukrainian who had served in one of Adolf Hitler's Waffen SS units during World War Two.
The vote for the new speaker will include at least eight candidates, with each given the opportunity to make a brief speech before the 338-seat House votes by secret ballot, ranking the candidates in order of preference.
The role of the House speaker is to maintain order and decorum during debates and only votes in the event of a tie, serving as an institutional representative of parliament. Among the candidates, Greg Fergus is aiming to become the first person of color to be elected as speaker, while Sean Casey would be the first speaker from Prince Edward Island. Chris d'Entremont, a Conservative, and Elizabeth May, leader of the Green Party, could also potentially be elected.
The speaker position comes with a salary increase of nearly C$93,000 ($68,000) per year on top of the base salary for a lawmaker, as well as an official country estate in Quebec's Gatineau Hills.
