Who is the Speaker of the House of Commons anyway? Well duh. It’s Andrew Scheer. But what I mean is, what does the Speaker do?

Don’t say “not much” or “watches monkeys throw bananas at each other.” With dissatisfaction mounting at parliamentary antics, in question period particularly, the position needs more scrutiny. And more sensible scrutiny.

An Ottawa Citizen handy guide included “Q. What’s the Speaker’s job? A. The Speaker’s main job inside the House is basically to maintain decorum, according to the 1,400-page parliamentary rule book called House of Commons Procedure and Practice. ‘It is the responsibility of the Speaker to act as the guardian of the rights and privileges of Members and of the House as an institution.'”

If journalists must insist on summarizing something before quoting it, the summary should at least have something to do with the quotation. “Rights and privileges” are not “decorum.” They are a far weightier matter.

We call the one member who does not speak in debates the Speaker because he (or she) is the one and only MP who speaks for the House in all matters concerning the other branches of government. He schedules votes, counts them and declares the outcome, decides when the House sits or rises, rules on procedure and in all other ways ensures that control of House business remains with the House.

That’s why the Commons in Britain insisted on electing its own Speaker by 1376, long before it had a regular meeting place. And why when King Charles I and his thugs invaded the Commons chamber in 1642, thrust Speaker William Lenthall from his chair and demanded at sword-point the whereabouts of five opposition MPs, Lenthall bravely responded, “May it please your Majesty, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak in this place but as the House is pleased to direct me, whose servant I am here.”

Decorum be hanged. It is through the Speaker that the House defends its “rights and privileges,” primarily against the executive but increasingly against the judiciary also.

Thus the Speaker can already tell ministers, who as ministers represent the executive within the Commons chamber, to stop drivelling insolently. But he may not compel them to respond, as Thomas Mulcair foolishly suggested.

Mulcair is remarkably unclear on the separation of powers, arguably because he aspires through the House to achieve supreme executive power himself, not to rein it in. But his confusion is widespread.

Democracy Watch, for example, was dangerously wrong to suggest that “A fully independent commission should be established (as the Conservatives promised in the 2006 election) and it should do a public, merit-based search for non-politician applicants and then present a short list of nominees for Speaker for all party leaders to choose from by consensus. This would make the Speaker non-partisan and much more effective.”

Au contraire. It would destroy his position as guardian of the House and further subordinate the already weakened legislature to the executive, which one party leader already heads while the other two want to. Only MPs may choose the Speaker, who then has neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak except as they direct, and only from among themselves.

If the opposition want a better QP, they should ask better questions, less petty and more relevant to the core business of the legislature: Scrutinizing and restraining the executive. So long as they ask feebly cunning partisan questions designed to seize the executive from the other clique, they will get feebly cunning partisan responses and deserve them.

What the Speaker really needs is to remember that his job is to defend the rights and privileges of the House. Only MPs can remind him. But we could remind them… if we remembered it ourselves.