“The floor
crossing tradition reflects the importance of preserving the
independence and mobility of members of Parliament to vote with their
feet when they feel it is in the best interests of their constituents
or the country to do so.”
And that is exactly the
point – sometimes an MP needs to vote with their feet. Party
leaders can become drunk with power or abusive. Party cultures can
change around them despite their best efforts. And it also gives
primacy to the party and not the individual MP, even though our
entire system is predicated on the role of the individual. We vote
for individual MPs – not a party slate.
So said Dale Smith in a
recent post........
And therein lays the
dilemma when political partys with whom a particular MP is affiliated
will not countenance any independent thought or action that does not
follow 'the party line' it can leave an MP who truly does represent
his constituents (a rare animal indeed) little choice if he or she is
to remain true to their original commitment.
Yesterday the NDP had second reading debate on a
bill that would attempt to ban MPs from “crossing the floor”
to another party. Mathieu Ravignat, the bill’s sponsor (though
the same bill has been introduced repeatedly by Peter Stoffer but
never actually debated), said he felt the bill would somehow restore
Canadians’ faith in our democracy.
“This bill also reflects a fundamental
objective of my party, which is to do politics differently in order
to renew people's trust in elected officials,” Ravignat said in
debate.
And of course, he brought up David Emerson and
Belinda Stronach to illustrate his examples of people who supposedly
traded away principle for power. Except that people forget that
Stronach actually had legitimate reasons to cross the floor, from the
iron-fisted discipline that was being imposed on a party, that
resisted her attempts to bring cultural change from within, that used
human rights – and especially gay rights – as tactical
wedge issues, and which marginalised her from the discussions despite
giving her a relatively high-profile critic position. But hey, she
crossed the floor just for a cabinet seat! She must have been
grasping for power! Except that the government could have toppled the
very next day, which was something she was fully prepared to accept.
Nobody mentions Scott Brison crossing the floor in
debate. Unwilling to become the token gay poster boy for the
“tolerance” of the new Conservative Party, Brison found a
party that respected his fiscal conservatism and social progressivity
(seeing of course that his former party, the Progressive
Conservatives, ceased to exist). But do the defenders of this bill
bring him up? No, of course not.
And of course what David Emerson did was
reprehensible, no matter that he may have justified it as being in
the best interests of his constituents to have a representative in
Cabinet. Nobody denies that. But he also knew the consequences of his
actions, and didn’t run again. At the same time, voters in the
ridings held by Stronach, Brison, and others who did cross the floor,
returned their MPs to Parliament, obviously feeling that their
reasons were sufficient.
The bill itself has a number of
technical
flaws and loopholes, and is aimed at making MPs
who want to leave their party be forced to sit as an independent, and
that they be forced to resign and hold a by-election before they
became a member of another party. Never mind that they could simply
vote with the party they wished to cross to until the next election
and run then. They could even join the caucus and simply not pay
their $5 membership fee to become an official party member until such
time as the next election, when they’d have to face a
nomination race anyway (which they may not win – such things
have happened to floor-crossers in the past).
But technical flaws aside, the bill doesn’t
actually do anything substantive to address Canadians’ faith in
politics or renew trust in elected officials. In fact, what it does
is say that an MP is no longer to exercise their own judgement and
independence, and that they must in fact submit themselves to the
tyranny of the party.
“According to the Library of Parliament,
there have been approximately 194 floor crossings since
Confederation,” said Conservative MP Michelle Rempel in
speaking out against the bill. “The floor crossing tradition
reflects the importance of preserving the independence and mobility
of members of Parliament to vote with their feet when they feel it is
in the best interests of their constituents or the country to do so.”
And that is exactly the point – sometimes an
MP needs to vote with their feet. Party leaders can become drunk with
power or abusive. Party cultures can change around them despite their
best efforts. And it also gives primacy to the party and not the
individual MP, even though our entire system is predicated on the
role of the individual. We vote for individual MPs – not a
party slate. As such, we are placing our faith in the judgement of
those MPs. If their conscience demands that they walk out of a party
that they can no longer stand with, we have given them the authority
to do so with the proviso that when the next election comes around,
we must hold them to account for that decision.
This bill affirms that MPs cannot be trusted to
exercise their own judgement on the basis of one bad apple, and
attacks made on the character of a select few others, which don’t
necessarily reflect the reality of their situation. This is a sad
statement for any sitting MP to make because it admits that they
themselves cannot be trusted. It also seeks to capitalise on any
voter anger of the “betrayal” of a floor crossing while
tempers are still hot, which serves nobody’s best interests.
Knee-jerk reactions are not the means by which we should hold our
elected officials accountable.
Gimmicks like this bill don’t serve to
restore trust – it just reaffirms cynicism. And that’s
the last thing that we need right now.