From an
article in today's Ottawa Sun, about the election of the Speaker of the House of Commons (the Liberals are the opposition party; the Conservatives have a minority government):
The fact that the Speaker is a Liberal is significant because it could tip the balance of power in the minority Parliament. Since the Speaker only votes in a tie, the Liberals now have one less vote.
Someone want to wake up the copy desk? Thanks. (And of course everyone will be reporting it the same way, even though it can't produce any change in the outcome of a vote. Grr.)
mendelannoyed
(not really related, I know, but your subject made me think of the joke)
*ponders*
Turning it around makes it even clearer: the times that the speaker doesn't get a vote are those where his vote would not change the outcome.
(The other boundary case, turning a loss into a tie, doesn't matter: if the speaker was Conservative, then the Liberals' ability to use their "lost" vote to force a tie would be useless because the speaker will always resolve the tie in the Conservatives' favour.)
Now, say the House had elected Larry Miller, Cons. MP for Bruce-Grey-Owen Sound, as an example of a Conservative backbencher, as Speaker. Same vote goes through the house. Not only does Mr. Milliken vote against the measure, adding one vote to Liberal totals, but Mr. Miller cannot vote for the measure, meaning one less vote for the Conservatives, and the motion/bill/whatever is defeated 154-153.
I guess what I'm saying is that I'm not concerned with the cases where the speaker's vote turns a loss into a tie or a tie into a win, but where it turns a loss into a win.
Is there a hole somewhere in my logic that I'm not seeing?