Prior to his election, Rota worked for the Industrial Research Assistance Program as regional manager for Ontario. He has also served with the Canadian Technology Network in Ottawa and has worked in the private sector. He is fluent in English, French, Italian and Spanish.
Political career
Rota began his political career at the municipal level, serving as a city councillor for North Bay City Council from 1994 to 1997, chairing the city's planning and economic development committee. He won the federal Liberal Party of Canada nomination for Nipissing—Timiskaming in early 2004, defeating rival candidates Susan Church, Hugh McLachlan and Joe Sinicrope with 52% on the second ballot. In the general election held in June of that year, he narrowly defeated Conservative candidate Al McDonald.
Rota ran again in the 2011 election and lost by a reported 14 votes to Jay Aspin of the Conservative Party.[2] Due to the narrow margin, an automatic judicial recount was required, confirming the margin at 18 votes.[3] After his 2011 loss, he began teaching at Nipissing University in North Bay, Ontario.
In the 2015 election, Rota was again the Liberal candidate, defeating Aspin to again become an MP in the 42nd Canadian Parliament.[4] On December 9, 2015, he was appointed Assistant Deputy Chair of Committees of the Whole. He was reelected in the 2019 election.[5]
As Speaker of the House of Commons
Following the 2019 Federal Election, during the 43rd Canadian Parliament he was elected as 37th speaker of the House of Commons on December 5, 2019, by winning a ranked ballot between himself, Joël Godin, Carol Hughes, Geoff Regan (the speaker during the previous Parliament) and Bruce Stanton.[6] Following Rota's win, the Conservatives said that he had them to thank for his new position. They had made the decision to unseat Regan as a show of strength during a caucus meeting. They did so by ranking Regan further down on the ranked ballot.[7][8]
In July 2021, the Liberal government took the unprecedented step of taking Speaker Rota to court after Rota ruled that the government did not have the legal authority to withhold documents requested by members of Parliament. The documents requested related to the transfer of samples of the level 4 viruses from the National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in China and the lab's dismissal of two of its scientists.
Subsequently, Speaker Rota reprimanded Iain Stewart, the President of the Public Health Agency of Canada for PHAC's "contempt" of Parliament, after Stewart failed to comply with multiple House and Commons committee orders to produce these unredacted documents.
The Liberal government’s legal challenge centered on whether or not courts can overrule the Parliamentary powers under the Westminster system. Speaker Rota had upheld the principle that the judiciary has no jurisdiction over the operations of the House and that only Parliament can decide how the law applies to its institutions.
The Liberal government subsequently dropped the court application after Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called an election in August, dissolving Parliament and thus terminating all business before the House, including the orders to produce the PHAC documents.[10][11]
On November 22, 2021, Rota was reelected as the speaker of the House of Commons.[12]
On September 22, 2023, following an address to the Canadian parliament by visiting Ukrainian presidentVolodymyr Zelenskyy, Rota introduced and recognized Yaroslav Hunka, a Ukrainian-Canadian retiree from North Bay, in the parliamentary galleries. He identified Hunka as a "war hero" who fought for the First Ukrainian Division, saying, "We have here in the chamber today a Ukrainian Canadian war veteran from the Second World War who fought for Ukrainian independence against the Russians and continues to support the troops today even at his age of 98. His name is Yaroslav Hunka. I am very proud to say that he is from North Bay and from my riding of Nipissing—Timiskaming. He is a Ukrainian hero and a Canadian hero, and we thank him for all his service. Thank you."[13] Following Rota's introduction, Hunka was applauded with two standing ovations by members of all parties.
Subsequent media reports identified Hunka as a member of the 14th Waffen Grenadier Division (also known as the 1st Galician Division) of Nazi Germany's Waffen-SS during the Second World War; the unit was responsible for anti-partisan reprisals in Poland, Slovakia and the Austria–Slovenia border. Rota issued an apology two days after his initial statement, saying, "In my remarks following the address of the president of Ukraine, I recognized an individual in the gallery. I have subsequently become aware of more information which causes me to regret my decision to do so." Rota apologized to "Jewish communities in Canada and around the world" and accepted responsibility for his action, saying that neither the Ukrainian delegation nor other MPs were aware that he would recognize Hunka.[14][15][16] The next day, he faced increasing demands from political parties and organizations to resign.[17][18]
On September 26, Rota announced his resignation as House Speaker, effective on September 27.[19][20] Rota was the seventh House Speaker to resign in Canadian history, and the first to do so since John Bosley in 1986.[21]
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Supporters
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