Speaker's corner

Hecklers, hoistings, and hinter-benches

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ABOVE THE FOLD

We made it! MPPs are set to rise for the winter recess today, so I sat down with Speaker DONNA SKELLY to look back on the raucous session.

Skelly just capped her first year as Ontario’s first-ever woman to play parliamentary referee, and we got into it all — the rowdiest hecklers, the future of flag-raisings, her makeover vision for the Legislature (hello, petting zoo), her go-to cafeteria pick, and the surprising side-hustle that has her eyeing the building’s antiques like a DIY project. (And fun fact: Skelly’s chief of staff is ex-PC MPP CHRISTINE HOGARTH.)

What’s it been like being the province’s first woman Speaker? It is such an incredible honour and opportunity, an honour to be the first woman and an opportunity to be a Speaker in the province of Ontario. I’m hoping that some of the goals that I had laid out at the beginning of my term I’m able to chip away at and accomplish, but it has been absolutely an incredible, incredible l…