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Conference of Speakers and Presiding Officers of the Commonwealth

The Conference brings together the Speakers and Presiding Officers of the national parliaments of the independent sovereign states of the Commonwealth. It was created in 1969 as an initiative of then Speaker of the House of Commons of Canada, the Honourable Lucien Lamoureux. Since its inception, Canada has provided CSPOC with a secretariat to support its activities.
The Conference is an independent group and has no formal affiliation with the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association, the Commonwealth Secretariat or the Commonwealth Heads of Government. CSPOC operates on a two-year cycle, holding a conference of the full membership every two years, usually early in January, and a meeting of the Standing Committee at the same time the intervening year.

The Conference aims to:

  • Maintain, foster, and encourage impartiality and fairness on the part of Speakers and Presiding Officers of Parliaments;
  • Promote knowledge and understanding of parliamentary democracy in its various forms; and
  • Develop parliamentary institutions.