For the first time in history, a Speaker of the Ontario Legislature has lost his job because of allegations that he favoured his own party, but many others have been threatened.

Liberal Mike Brown, who as Speaker refereed debates, failed to get re-elected mainly because opposition Progressive Conservatives and New Democrats felt he was lenient with his own party when it broke rules and a few Liberals who were disgruntled for various reasons voted with them.

The allegations contained some truth, because the easy-going Brown permitted more heckling and obstructionism than Speakers traditionally do and most of it was by Liberals in sustained attempts to prevent opposition parties being heard, rather than by the frustrated opposition.

Almost all Speakers have been accused of favoring their parties.

Brown's predecessor, Alvin Curling, a Liberal and the first black Speaker, left to enough praise it might have been thought he was a candidate for a Nobel Peace Prize. Politicians tend to be charitable toward departing adversaries.

But Curling quit shortly before the legislature was to debate a New Democrat motion that he was biased and incompetent and should resign.

The Conservatives felt the same, calling him a disgrace as Speaker, and their entire caucus once walked out because he refused to allow them to say that the government was suppressing a report.

But black community groups complained that Curling was being picked on because he is black, which was untrue, and an accommodating federal government found him an ambassadorship far away from the sensitive situation.

Gary Carr, an earlier Conservative Speaker, was accused by Conservative premier Ernie Eves of being biased, but on this issue the Speaker clearly was in the right.

When Eves unveiled a Budget outside the legislature to avoid opposition parties' questions, Carr accused him of putting his political interests ahead of the those of the institution. But an election was too close to risk punishing this outspoken Speaker.

Conservatives threatened to remove another Conservative Speaker who showed the neutrality that Speakers are supposed to have. Chris Stockwell, after being left out of premier Mike Harris's cabinet, was elected Speaker on a promise to serve all MPPs equally and made rulings that his party disliked.

Some in it felt particularly that Stockwell was delaying their legislation to merge Metropolitan Toronto into a single city and warned him privately that they were considering proposing a non-confidence motion that would remove him.

Stockwell retorted that he would not be pressured, but any attempt by Conservatives to eject him as Speaker would have made them look dictatorial and they never followed up their threat.

Hugh Edighoffer, a Liberal Speaker, upset many because he tried to keep the front of the legislature free of demonstrations. He barred groups including disarmament and environmentalist activists, saying the Liberals had worked hard to provide a dignified atmosphere.

But opponents finally won the day by arguing that the front of the legislature should be a "people place" where the public rather than lobbyists could express its views.

But the Speaker who got in most trouble was Conservative John Turner in the early 1980s. His rulings included permitting a Conservative minister to sneer that a Liberal needed to see a psychiatrist because he was depressed and paranoid, and ejecting the leaders of the two opposition parties, but within minutes changing his mind and allowing them back in.

Turner also broke the rule that Speakers should be neutral by making a radio broadcast in his riding supporting government legislation about which the opposition parties had concerns and introducing Conservative ministers at a rally.

The NDP put forward a motion that the legislature had lost confidence in Turner and asking him to resign, but the Liberals, who earlier said much the same thing, refused to support it on the ground Turner had weaknesses but was a fine human being who should not go down in history as being kicked out of this prestigious job.

This has been a problem when premiers and more recently MPPs chose Speakers - they often have picked the nicest guy and not the smartest.