Bill Casey was longest serving Tory

The media was referring to the fact that Bill Casey was until Tuesday the longest serving Tory Member of Parliament. Casey was first elected in the 1988 federal election. He lost in 1993 but became an MP again in 1997. Tory cabinet minister Greg Thompson also was first elected in 1988. In 1993, Thompson lost by only about 800 votes. Thompson also became an MP again in 1997. I’ve done some research and appears that Bill Casey was sworn in as an MP a little bit before Greg Thompson and therefore Bill Casey was the longest serving Tory in the House of Commons. Now that Casey is no longer a member of the Tory caucus Greg Thompson is now the longest serving Tory MP. Being the longest serving Tory MP did not prevent Casey from being kicked out of caucus.


The longest continuously serving MP is currently New Democrat Bill Blaikie. He has been an MP since 1979. However, Blaikie isn’t running again maybe because he wants a life beyond politics. The second longest continuously serving MP is BQer Louis Plamondon. Plamondon was first elected in the 1984 federal election as a Progressive Conservative. After the failure of the Meech Lake Accord in 1990, Plamondon left the Tories and joined the Bloc Quebecois.

It is not entirely clear who the third longest serving MP is because there are several Liberal MPs plus one Independent MP who is a former Liberal (Joe Comuzzi) who were all elected concurrently in 1988 and have continuously served since. Those Liberals serving continuously since 1988 are:

Albina Guarnieri
Jim Karygiannis
Derek Lee
Lawrence MacCaulay
Diane Marleau
Paul Martin
Joe McGuire
Peter Milliken
Jim Peterson
Joe Volpe
Tom Wappel

As I mentioned, Independent and former Liberal MP Joe Comuzzi has also continuously served since 1988. Of note is the fact that no Tory MP has served continuously longer than the longest continuously serving Bloc MP, the longest continuously serving NDP MP, or any of the longest continuously serving Liberal MPs I just mentioned. No Tory MP has even served as continuously long as the Independent MP who has served continuously since 1988 (Comuzzi). Of that fact that every other political affiliation in the House has at least one MP who has served continuously longer than any Tory MP is something I am very proud of.

If Louis Plamondon runs and wins again in the next election, he will become the Dean of the House. The Dean of the House is the House’s longest continuously serving member. It is the longest continuously serving member of the House who presides over the election of the Speaker of the House of Commons (assuming they are not a cabinet minister; if they are a cabinet minister the honour goes to the longest continuously serving member who is not a cabinet minister). If Plamondon runs and wins again in the next election he will preside over the election of the next Parliament’s Speaker. It does however seem strange to have a separatist Dean of the House. If Plamondon retires or fails to be elected again, it is slightly unclear who would become the new Dean of the House. My theory is that MPs are always sworn-in in alphabetical order, although not all are sworn in on the same day. It appears that Comuzzi, Guarnieri, and Wappel were sworn in a little bit later than the others still left from 1988. Assuming that on a given day, everyone is sworn-in in alphabetical order, that would leave the first remaining MP first elected in 1988 to have been sworn-in to be Jim Karygiannis. After that, next in line would be Derek Lee, followed by Lawrence MacAulay, followed by Diane Marleau, followed by Peter Milliken, followed by Joe Volpe, followed by Albina Guarnieri. I have obviously not listed the other MPs continuously serving since 1988 because they have already announced that they are not running again. If Peter Milliken were to be designated the Dean of the House, there could be potential problems. Milliken is the current Speaker of the House of Commons and if theoretically speaking (it is not likely as there are several MPs in line before Milliken to be Dean of the House) Milliken is the Dean of the House, the problem would arise from the fact that Milliken would almost certainly be again running to be Speaker. I don’t know if it is possible to preside over the election of the Speaker when you yourself are a candidate to be Speaker. I expect that if this unlikely scenario were to arise, the MP next in line after Milliken would have to preside over the Speaker’s election.

In conclusion, I want to wish Bill Casey well on his future as a non-Tory MP.