John Allen Fraser, the first MP to be elected Speaker of the House of Commons by a secret ballot, has died. He was 92 years old.
Fraser represented the riding of Vancouver South from 1972 to 1993 as part of the Progressive Conservative Party.
Up until the 1980s, the Speaker was nominated by the prime minister and MPs simply gave a rubber-stamp approval.
Reforms were introduced in 1986 to allow MPs to directly have a say in who oversaw the affairs and business of the House. Fraser won on the eleventh ballot in the first Speaker election in September of that year. He would hold the role until his retirement in 1993.
In 1986, Progressive Conservative MP John Fraser was elected Speaker of the House. It was the first time MPs chose a Speaker via secret ballot.
“Many of his decisions created the basic interpretation of our modern rules and redefined what is appropriate practice in our Chamber today,” current Speaker Greg Fergus said in a media statement.
Before taking on the role of Speaker, Fraser held two cabinet positions under two different prime ministers.
He first served as environment minister in the short-lived government of Joe Clark. Fraser was later sworn in as fisheries minister in the late Brian Mulroney’s government. He would resign from that post in 1985 after he overturned health-inspectors’ decision to declare large quantities of tuna as unfit for human consumption.
Fraser was an officer of the Order of Canada and a member of the Order of British Columbia.