OTTAWA—This could be the week that Canada’s Members of Parliament earn their 15 minutes — not of fame, as Andy Warhol once predicted, but of freedom.

A very cautious ruling by the Commons Speaker on Tuesday, as well as a planned Liberal-led debate on Wednesday, may loosen the heavy grip of party discipline on the 15 minutes that MPs have each day to make personal statements in the chamber.

And that would put a dent in the tight control that Prime Minister Stephen Harper has held over his caucus — control that has sparked a simmering mini-rebellion in Conservative-caucus ranks, especially among anti-abortion MPs, who argued that their freedom of speech was being actively suppressed in Parliament by party bosses.

The Conservative MPs’ complaint to Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer did not result in total victory for them in Tuesday’s ruling, but Scheer did say he would take notice if they made visible attempts to be heard in the 15 minutes set aside for one-minute-long, members statements each day.

“The right to seek the floor at any time is the right of each individual member of Parliament and is not dependent on any other member of Parliament,” Scheer said.

“If members want to be recognized, they will have to actively demonstrate that they wish to participate. They have to rise in their places and seek the floor.”

Members’ statements have been traditionally used to pay tribute to people or events back in the MPs’ ridings, but they have increasingly been used in recent years, especially by Conservatives, to levy attacks against their rivals.

And freedom of speech will remain a big issue in the Commons on Wednesday as well, when the Liberals, under new leader Justin Trudeau, attempt to get the rules changed over how those 15 minutes are shared among MPs. The Liberals have proposed a system that would organize would-be speakers alphabetically, by party.

“We think (there’s) a better way, a more democratic way,” Liberal House leader Dominic LeBlanc told reporters.

The Liberals’ opposition day, which they’re using to present this motion, had been scheduled for Monday, but Conservatives postponed it at the last minute until Wednesday. Trudeau, scheduled to be in Labrador on Wednesday to help campaign in the byelection, won’t be in the Commons then to speak up for his own motion.

B.C. Conservative MP Mark Warawa has been the most vocal dissident, but he suffered a back injury on the weekend so was not available to talk to reporters after Tuesday’s ruling. He did post an approving Tweet on Twitter, however: “I’m pleased with Speaker Scheer’s ruling that MPs have the right to seek the floor at any time.”

Another one of the dissenters, LeVar Payne, said he intends to test the tentative freedom on Wednesday with a proposed statement — the content of which he didn’t want to reveal. “So it should be interesting,” Payne told reporters.