Senate will re-examine hiring and background checks for parliamentary pages
Following the disruption of last week’s throne speech caused by Brigette DePape , in which the 21-year-old page stepped onto the floor of the Senate and revealed a cardboard “Stop Harper!” sign, the Senate has announced it will review the page program’s hiring and background check processes. Senators are meeting on Tuesday to discuss the incident’s implications for security and how people are hired to serve as parliamentary pages. “This was clear contempt for the Parliament she had sworn to serve, taking place as it did in the middle of one of the most democratic acts in the world,” Ontario Conservative Senator David Tkachuck told the Toronto Star. “I don’t have to tell you what would have happened if she had something else in her jacket instead of a poster.”