I have a problem with the House of Commons floor crossers, as I think most people do.
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Im actually tired of the discussion of floor crossing. To me its a byproduct of the FPTP party system. If you get rid of FPTP in favour of a system where MPs can form coalitions around specific legislation there should be less incentive to switch parties.
@sleepy62 agreed! I don't know if it would eliminate it completely but logically you would think so. maybe others in PR systems would know
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@crispius i agree something must change. And an automatic by-election is a better option than the status quo
@chris
Apparently there was a private member’s bill brought forward in 2012 by an NDP member that would have done exactly that. 3 Conservatives and 88 NDP members voted in favour, everyone else (including Poilievre) voted against it. -
I have a problem with the House of Commons floor crossers, as I think most people do.
But I havent been able to come up with a more palatable alternative or at least a different scenario.
The biggest problem, for me, is the act of poaching. The trickle of MPs.
It gives the impression, falsely or not, that these people needed just a little more time, a little more convincing, a little more... ? to eventually turn on their constituent's choice of party.
What would be more pallatable? How about a group? Rather than a trickle.
People tallk, it is naïve to think it isn't known between individuals who may be thinking of leaving or switching parties.
So if there is more than one with that thought I think it would be better for our democracy if those MPs banded together and made their concerns known privately in their caucus first, then if nothing changes, they communicate to others including the public, and make it clear this is something that could happen en masse.
Then at least it takes away the transactional nature of it and frames it more as a democratic choice, informed by whatever situation is happening and done for the benefit of constituents and Canadians.
How does this change get made? Unfortunately that's the hard part. It would be hard or maybe inappropriate to "legislate".
It would need to be an expectation, a habit, a "norm".
It could happen. Though today, politicians following "norms" seems to be a little out of vogue.
#canPoli #cdnpoli #canada #democracy #houseofcommons
https://halifax.citynews.ca/video/2026/04/13/floor-crossing-raises-questions-on-canadian-voting-stability/Just a different POV on the floor-crossers, traverseurs/traverseuses.
I grew up in a riding that was fairly ProgCon, but shifted Lib as I grew older. At the federal and provincial level.
Both parties had hacks for candidates. Apart from one guy for a couple of years at the federal level, I don't think that there was one cabinet minister among them, maybe a parliamentary Seceretary to the minister without portfolio.
But the NDP. Pretty much every election, the Dippers found a guy (for it was always a man back then) who was smart, charming, and... NDP. And people would say, "shame that he's NDP, otherwise he'd win".
Even before voting age I used to think to myself, "AYFKM: you think that you're better off with a party hack?"
Add on top of that a general disrespect for the parties, and to this day I have no emotions when I learn about any floor-crosser, traverseur/traverseuse.
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Im actually tired of the discussion of floor crossing. To me its a byproduct of the FPTP party system. If you get rid of FPTP in favour of a system where MPs can form coalitions around specific legislation there should be less incentive to switch parties.
@sleepy62 @chris At the core of our system is determination that the leader of the party with most seats gets to become PM and his party forms government. So having MPs belonging to a party is pretty significant since when you vote for your MP, you implicitely vote for the PM.
Untying MPs from a party would then require elected MPs to vote in the House to choose the Prime Minister, or for voters to vote for both MP and a "President".
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@sleepy62 @chris At the core of our system is determination that the leader of the party with most seats gets to become PM and his party forms government. So having MPs belonging to a party is pretty significant since when you vote for your MP, you implicitely vote for the PM.
Untying MPs from a party would then require elected MPs to vote in the House to choose the Prime Minister, or for voters to vote for both MP and a "President".
@sleepy62 @chris An advantage is that a Minister of X would need to write better bills to ensure it passes since it can't count on a majority being "whipped" to support a bill pandering to lobbyists. ( like C-22).
But may functions of government wouldn't work as well without parties. Who decides who is part of a committee?
But a less political government would do better job of usihg logic to govern the country instead of being influenced by lobbyists.
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@chris
Apparently there was a private member’s bill brought forward in 2012 by an NDP member that would have done exactly that. 3 Conservatives and 88 NDP members voted in favour, everyone else (including Poilievre) voted against it.@crispius 88 NDP members. Ah yes, those were the days.
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I have a problem with the House of Commons floor crossers, as I think most people do.
But I havent been able to come up with a more palatable alternative or at least a different scenario.
The biggest problem, for me, is the act of poaching. The trickle of MPs.
It gives the impression, falsely or not, that these people needed just a little more time, a little more convincing, a little more... ? to eventually turn on their constituent's choice of party.
What would be more pallatable? How about a group? Rather than a trickle.
People tallk, it is naïve to think it isn't known between individuals who may be thinking of leaving or switching parties.
So if there is more than one with that thought I think it would be better for our democracy if those MPs banded together and made their concerns known privately in their caucus first, then if nothing changes, they communicate to others including the public, and make it clear this is something that could happen en masse.
Then at least it takes away the transactional nature of it and frames it more as a democratic choice, informed by whatever situation is happening and done for the benefit of constituents and Canadians.
How does this change get made? Unfortunately that's the hard part. It would be hard or maybe inappropriate to "legislate".
It would need to be an expectation, a habit, a "norm".
It could happen. Though today, politicians following "norms" seems to be a little out of vogue.
#canPoli #cdnpoli #canada #democracy #houseofcommons
https://halifax.citynews.ca/video/2026/04/13/floor-crossing-raises-questions-on-canadian-voting-stability/What you propose, those MPs banding together and raising their concerns first, is an excellent idea.
I mean, governments are generally unrepresentative because of FPTP. Then mix in some floor crossing, it doesn't represent those MP's constituents any better.
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I have a problem with the House of Commons floor crossers, as I think most people do.
But I havent been able to come up with a more palatable alternative or at least a different scenario.
The biggest problem, for me, is the act of poaching. The trickle of MPs.
It gives the impression, falsely or not, that these people needed just a little more time, a little more convincing, a little more... ? to eventually turn on their constituent's choice of party.
What would be more pallatable? How about a group? Rather than a trickle.
People tallk, it is naïve to think it isn't known between individuals who may be thinking of leaving or switching parties.
So if there is more than one with that thought I think it would be better for our democracy if those MPs banded together and made their concerns known privately in their caucus first, then if nothing changes, they communicate to others including the public, and make it clear this is something that could happen en masse.
Then at least it takes away the transactional nature of it and frames it more as a democratic choice, informed by whatever situation is happening and done for the benefit of constituents and Canadians.
How does this change get made? Unfortunately that's the hard part. It would be hard or maybe inappropriate to "legislate".
It would need to be an expectation, a habit, a "norm".
It could happen. Though today, politicians following "norms" seems to be a little out of vogue.
#canPoli #cdnpoli #canada #democracy #houseofcommons
https://halifax.citynews.ca/video/2026/04/13/floor-crossing-raises-questions-on-canadian-voting-stability/@chris I actually have no fundamental problem with floor crossing. In my mind it's the last place where individual MPs seem to matter at all. I do have a problem with whipped votes and the idea that there's 330 or so people with $200k+ salaries whose only job is to be a trained seal and raise their hand or slap their desk at the right times.
Really feel like people are mad about the wrong thing.
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@chris I actually have no fundamental problem with floor crossing. In my mind it's the last place where individual MPs seem to matter at all. I do have a problem with whipped votes and the idea that there's 330 or so people with $200k+ salaries whose only job is to be a trained seal and raise their hand or slap their desk at the right times.
Really feel like people are mad about the wrong thing.
@UrbanEdm very true. Canadian MPs and parties could learn a lot from the sometimes fierce independence of government back bench MPs in the UK parliamentary tradition. That is partly my inspiration for this idea.
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@UrbanEdm very true. Canadian MPs and parties could learn a lot from the sometimes fierce independence of government back bench MPs in the UK parliamentary tradition. That is partly my inspiration for this idea.
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@chris I actually have no fundamental problem with floor crossing. In my mind it's the last place where individual MPs seem to matter at all. I do have a problem with whipped votes and the idea that there's 330 or so people with $200k+ salaries whose only job is to be a trained seal and raise their hand or slap their desk at the right times.
Really feel like people are mad about the wrong thing.
@UrbanEdm I agree. The ability of an MP to cross the floor when their party no longer represents what they or their constituents signed up for is the one real power that backbench MPs have in our system. It is a fail safe, and it is why it is important for us as citizens to engage with our MPs about the issues that concern us because in a whipped parliament, they still have the power to walk away from that whip. If a government doesn’t want to fall, they cannot ignore the backbench. @chris
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R relay@relay.mycrowd.ca shared this topic
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@chris I actually have no fundamental problem with floor crossing. In my mind it's the last place where individual MPs seem to matter at all. I do have a problem with whipped votes and the idea that there's 330 or so people with $200k+ salaries whose only job is to be a trained seal and raise their hand or slap their desk at the right times.
Really feel like people are mad about the wrong thing.
Sometimes the term 'whipped votes' sounds less like whipped cream and more like being whipped at the stake.
Every now and then there are reforms mooted at giving individual MPs more power but the trend continues to be ever-greater concentration of power in the party leader, their inner circle and comms team. It's no wonder backbenchers get bitter.
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Sometimes the term 'whipped votes' sounds less like whipped cream and more like being whipped at the stake.
Every now and then there are reforms mooted at giving individual MPs more power but the trend continues to be ever-greater concentration of power in the party leader, their inner circle and comms team. It's no wonder backbenchers get bitter.
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I have a problem with the House of Commons floor crossers, as I think most people do.
But I havent been able to come up with a more palatable alternative or at least a different scenario.
The biggest problem, for me, is the act of poaching. The trickle of MPs.
It gives the impression, falsely or not, that these people needed just a little more time, a little more convincing, a little more... ? to eventually turn on their constituent's choice of party.
What would be more pallatable? How about a group? Rather than a trickle.
People tallk, it is naïve to think it isn't known between individuals who may be thinking of leaving or switching parties.
So if there is more than one with that thought I think it would be better for our democracy if those MPs banded together and made their concerns known privately in their caucus first, then if nothing changes, they communicate to others including the public, and make it clear this is something that could happen en masse.
Then at least it takes away the transactional nature of it and frames it more as a democratic choice, informed by whatever situation is happening and done for the benefit of constituents and Canadians.
How does this change get made? Unfortunately that's the hard part. It would be hard or maybe inappropriate to "legislate".
It would need to be an expectation, a habit, a "norm".
It could happen. Though today, politicians following "norms" seems to be a little out of vogue.
#canPoli #cdnpoli #canada #democracy #houseofcommons
https://halifax.citynews.ca/video/2026/04/13/floor-crossing-raises-questions-on-canadian-voting-stability/@chris I think part of the problem is that the way news, advertisements, and discussions are framed doesn't match how our electoral system works. Federally, we only vote one one thing: what person we want to represent our riding. Not which party gets how many seats, not who the prime minister is, not who the party leaders are, just which person represents our neighborhood, and the chair goes to the person, not the party they're in.
Funnily enough, my view on this was cemented when Mark Carney's previous boss poached an MP from a Vancouver riding which had never elected a Conservative MP, but wound up with one anyway. People made so much noise, Stephen Harper said "this is getting old," and my immediate thought was "yeah, democracy's fucking ancient."
