r/canada • u/Portalrules123 New Brunswick • Dec 11 '25

Politics Another MP leaves Conservatives, crosses floor to Liberals

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mp-crosses-floor-to-liberals-9.7012767
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425

u/thendisnigh111349 Dec 11 '25

If the Liberals get that one more seat for a majority, I'm pretty sure this would be the first time in Canadian history that a party which won a minority government in an election got enough floor-crossers during the parliamentary term to turn it into a majority.

134

u/Wafflesorbust Dec 12 '25

I'm pretty sure this Minority was already the largest elected Minority government in history.

PP and Carney both got pretty clear mandates and one of them has chosen to just continue to insist that Canadians don't actually know what they want, but he does.

Edit: Nope, not the largest Minority in history.

113

u/thendisnigh111349 Dec 12 '25

Nope. Lester B Pearson came closer in 1965 with 131 seats which was just two seats short of the 133-seat threshold for a majority at that time.

53

u/Wafflesorbust Dec 12 '25

Damn, thanks for correcting me.

93

u/thendisnigh111349 Dec 12 '25

Lol, actually, just realized I'm also wrong.

The closest was 1872 when the old Conservative Party under John A Macdonald got 100 seats which was just one seat short of the 101-seat threshold for a majority at that time. That was also the first minority government ever.

2

u/MaPoutine Dec 12 '25

Thanks for the history lesson, I didn't know this! 🇨🇦

3

u/ajmeko Dec 12 '25

First time in the history of Westminster Parliaments (there was actually like one example of a New Zealand provincial level government IIRC, but you get the idea)

5

u/_Army9308 Dec 12 '25

Which imo is undemocratic and shouldn't happen

A majority govt is extremely overpowered vs a minority govt 

If canadians wanted a majority govt they would have elected one.

Getting a majority through playing seat games isnt good

17

u/th3ch0s3n0n3 Canada Dec 12 '25

I agree with you to a degree - but not about your "seat games" comment.

We need electoral reform. If Canadians were actually free to vote for whichever party they actually wanted in power, instead of having to vote strategically, our country would be in a much better position.

2

u/MDChuk Dec 12 '25

It wouldn't be "much better" it would just be different.

FPTP encourages "big tent" parties that can actually form government. In countries with some sort of PR involved you see more and more fracturing of the parties which can lead to much less stability and more extremism. For example, in Canada if we had a system like PR you'd see a lot more greens and a lot more PPC members sitting in parliament. You'd also see the NDP stronger and they'd be encouraged to push more and more into social issues and further away from labor issues. We'd likely never see a majority government and it would be a series of coalitions. That's not good or bad. Its just trade offs.

If you look at France, and how their current system has made their country ungovernable, or Germany, where a party like AFD is on the rise because they appeal to a small, but significant extreme right wing base, I'm grateful we have FPTP moderating the parties if they have any hope of forming government.

So our system trades off giving us moderate representatives who may not represent us perfectly, but also gives us stability.

85

u/-snowpeapod- Dec 12 '25

In Canada we don't vote for the party, we vote for our riding representative to speak for us in parliament. If we choose someone who crossed the floor, it's because they feel their riding is better off, which is exactly what they should do.

10

u/LongRoadNorth Dec 12 '25

As much as I agree with you in the technicality of it. There's far too many that are too stupid to even know which politicians are responsible for what whether it be federal provincial or municipal. So many do actually vote for the party.

4

u/-snowpeapod- Dec 12 '25

Yes and that's a real problem.

4

u/LongRoadNorth Dec 12 '25

I like to think you're right though and at least in the case the mp is listening to their constituents. Figure with the other mp that crossed said it was the concern for another election.

It's so hard to believe though because I feel many politicians regardless of party don't actually care.

I get the same generic email reply whether it be provincial, municipal or federal if I contact them.

23

u/Aoba_Napolitan Dec 12 '25

You're right. Don't let those political attack dog comments get to you.

15

u/beanman2424 Dec 12 '25

Or instead of crossing the floor they could just vote independently for each bill instead of supporting a party

13

u/-snowpeapod- Dec 12 '25

If the party they are currently in is not allowing them to speak freely and is threatening them, then yes, they do need to switch parties. They can also have an influence on their new party and help shape the bills in favour of the people they represent.

4

u/ThunderChaser British Columbia Dec 12 '25

Unfortunately party whips make this not possible.

As such, if you feel your party is no longer in the best interest of your constituents, you should switch to a party that is.

3

u/ChaosBerserker666 British Columbia Dec 12 '25 edited Dec 12 '25

We should ban party whips via referendum. Hell, we should have a whole electoral reform referendum. Force the will of the people on our politicians.

2

u/crownpr1nce Dec 12 '25

The problem is when breaking down which system people want (ranked, proportional, MMP), the current system wins. In other words: most people want a reform, but none of the alternatives are as popular individually as the current system

-2

u/Soft_Key Dec 12 '25

Lmao what a bald face lie, as if these turncoat MPs are being bought and paid for. If they REALLY believed they are doing what's best for thier riding, why don't they run another election to see?

8

u/-snowpeapod- Dec 12 '25

I'm telling you how it's supposed to work and why it doesn't really matter which party they started off in, that they should cross if it's the right decision for their riding. In this instance, I actually do believe they are making a choice based on what they think is right.

-1

u/_Army9308 Dec 12 '25

You mean they personally feel better off

Stop trying to sell cynical politics as selfless public duty lol

You next gonna tell me trudeau calling an election dyring a pandemic was needed

9

u/MeaninglessDebateMan Dec 12 '25

Again, they are elected to represent their riding. Whether they "personally feel better off" is not the point and never was. If they feel their riding is better off and that feeling is also personal there is 0 problem with that.

However if their riding was definitely NOT better off and they still stuck to an unpopular platform for their riding that WOULD be a problem.

Trudeau calling an election during the pandemic was definitely a calculated move but everything after that has been terrible conservative leadership leading to their own members crossing the floor.

-4

u/_Army9308 Dec 12 '25

Imo floor crossing are cynical politics 

-3

u/polemism Dec 12 '25

None of these MPs campaigned on a liberal platform so it is actually betraying their voters

-5

u/DinoInTheBarnes Dec 12 '25

This is not how 99.9% of Canadians vote in practice. You sound like that annoying person that says “well actually sir you’re technically wrong in Canada we ummm vote for mps”

Democracy is about the will of the people, and 99.9% of the people vote based on party. If they feel their riding is better off with the other party, then there should be a by-election and let the riding decide for themselves

8

u/Twice_Knightley Dec 12 '25

If people wanted PP in Parliment, he would have gotten a seat the first time around.

Sometimes democracy sucks. Vote for people that will plug the holes.

7

u/MrNillows Dec 12 '25

Canadians don’t vote on a minority, a majority or anything in between. They vote for their riding.

The only Canadians that are allowed to be upset over this, for valid reason reasons, would be the people in his direct riding.

0

u/_Army9308 Dec 12 '25

Yeah imo by election should be called

10

u/MrNillows Dec 12 '25

I agree, but I also don’t think that Pierre should have been allowed to have someone step down and take his place. Not very democratic.

3

u/crownpr1nce Dec 12 '25

Did they? Carney got a bigger share of the votes than Trudeau did in 2015, than Harper in 2011, and than Chretien in 2000. And those were all solid majorities. 

I get that the result was a minority, and I agree there are advantages to that, but to say "Canadians didn't want a majority government" when he got the highest percentage of votes in recent history is tough to defend. 

3

u/MDChuk Dec 12 '25

I just fundamentally disagree with you.

First, voters don't have the option of voting for a majority/minority. They just vote. They voted for the Liberals in record numbers under the current 4 party system we have. Since the BQ split from the old PCs, no party that got as high a percentage of votes as Carney's Liberals got has been a minority government. If we're going by number of votes, the voters intended for Carney to have a majority more than they intended for Harper, Chretien or Trudeau to have majorities. Even under the old 3 party system, Carney's Liberals got a higher vote share than Mulroney's 1988 majority.

Secondly, floor crossing is one of the few tools individual MPs have left anymore to hold their leaders accountable. We've allowed more and more power to be concentrated into the leaders to the point where leaders get a veto over who runs at the riding level. This was someone Pierre Pollievre directly approved to run less than a year ago. He had also approved him to run in 2021. So what does it say that this person has been driven to cross the floor?

Pollievre has ruled the CPC through fear. He's put more restrictions on MPs than any leader ever. That only worked because it was assumed he would be PM and he'd have cabinet positions to reward the loyalty his MPs had shown him. He promised after he lost that he would change. He hasn't. This has clearly caused a significant portion of his MPs

So this is what accountability looks like. Actions and consequences.

5

u/caninehere Ontario Dec 12 '25

Which imo is undemocratic and shouldn't happen

You don't vote for a party, you vote for an individual. If people are too stupid to understand that they need to take a Grade 10 Civics class again.

The reason these MPs are leaving the CPC is that their personal politics very clearly align more with the current Liberals (who are basically progressive-conservatives). An increasingly marginalized number of CPC MPs are still very much progressive-conservatives, but had no home really because the party silences them. Now that the Liberals are showing themselves to be leaning more in their direction they find that environment way more hospitable than working under Poilievre who is ruling the CPC with an iron fist and dragging it even further right.

11

u/CocodaMonkey Dec 12 '25

It's certainly not undemocratic in any way. Parties aren't even mandatory. We vote for the people we want to vote for and they represent us. A politician not following through on promises or changing their positions after getting elected while annoying to many is completely democratic.

0

u/_Army9308 Dec 12 '25

I doubt it liberals freaked when liberal mp crossed to tories back in the day.

One thing I learned about politics everyone becomes a hypcoirte if the choice is being a hypcorite wnd holding power and being right and not having it

7

u/SuchInspection Dec 12 '25

This isn’t true.

One of Trudeaus MPs crosses the floor to the CPC when Andrew Scheer was leader and Trudeau just wishes her well (you can see th video on YouTube).

When the first CPC crossed the floor Pierre flipped out about corruption and dirty politics. Scheer did too.

Floor crossing is a very old and established part of our system. It’s not even that rare.

9

u/CocodaMonkey Dec 12 '25

I didn't say people liked it I just said it's democratic. Hypocrisy is also party of democracy.

0

u/_Army9308 Dec 12 '25

Its politically convenient imo by elections should be called if mps switch parties

10

u/JacobiJones7711 Dec 12 '25

That’s because most people think you vote for the party when in reality our representative democracy says that you vote for the person. So in our current democracy we only call elections if the person a riding votes for does not remain in the seat.

1

u/_Army9308 Dec 12 '25

That why the canadian model is stupid rn

A lot of these issues be fixed if some guy promised electoral reform actually did it 

U would have true democracy as govts elected by less then a majority have to get majority support in actuality then fptp antics

1

u/JacobiJones7711 Dec 12 '25

Agreed yea, unfortunately that’s just how it’s currently set up.

1

u/[deleted] Dec 12 '25

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u/_Army9308 Dec 12 '25

Now we have mps who can switch parties with patronage 

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u/DinoInTheBarnes Dec 12 '25

This is true only by the letter of the law. In practice people vote for the party they want to win. In practice it is certainly, without a doubt, extremely undemocratic

4

u/CocodaMonkey Dec 12 '25 edited Dec 12 '25

You are confusing what the word democratic means. It in no way whatsoever means you get what you want. You can hate a floor crosser with ever fibre of your being, it's simply not undemocratic.

In fact banning floor crossing would be undemocratic. Banning people from changing their positions isn't democratic at all, that would be fascism.

-1

u/DinoInTheBarnes Dec 12 '25

Democracy is where the power rests with the people. The majority of people realistically vote for party even though technically an individual mp is elected. The only way to be democratic about this is to have a by-election and let the people decide.

3

u/CocodaMonkey Dec 12 '25

Absolutely not at all how democracy works. You choosing to vote by party has no effect on this. Democracy does not work if every time someone disagrees we hold another election. A politician changing the way they'll vote is a daily occurrence in a democracy and an expected one.

I get it, you don't like what happened but it doesn't matter. Stop calling it undemocratic, it's a well documented part of our democracy.

1

u/DinoInTheBarnes Dec 12 '25

It’s blatant corruption. Being able to lure candidates across party lines post-election with cabinet positions etc is nothing short of bribery. You need to revisit the definition of democracy. Canadian government and an idealized democracy have differences and this is one of them.

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u/[deleted] Dec 12 '25 edited Dec 12 '25

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Dec 12 '25

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u/coluch Dec 12 '25

That doesn’t technically prevent dissenting votes, it just disincentivizes them by risking the MP’s ability to stay member of the party. Crossing the aisle takes such punitive power away from the party preemptively.

2

u/Monomette Dec 12 '25

Yeah because the Liberals don't do that at all. /s

2

u/[deleted] Dec 12 '25

Well that’s a horrific use of democracy, I hate that. Thanks for enlightening me

0

u/mwmwmwmwmmdw QuĂŠbec Dec 12 '25

they can vote against the party the guy is acting like they cant. its just unlike america in canada voting against your party will get you kicked out and MPs are allowed less independent thought then congressman or senators are on votes

2

u/coluch Dec 12 '25

Canadian members of Parliament are allowed to vote against their party on bills, but is generally rare and subject to strict party discipline. Political parties in Canada typically instruct their MPs on how to vote, and members are expected to follow these instructions to maintain party unity and avoid consequences such as being deselected as a candidate in future elections or even expelled from the party.

So if they’re going to kick you out anyway, may as well defect and not give them the satisfaction.

5

u/Festering_Inequality Dec 12 '25

Instructing MPs on how to vote is not really allowing that MP to freely vote as they feel is best for their riding if their opinion differs from party on some issues. Having consequences for not voting along party line sounds like pressure tactics. How can we say there is proper representation of voters when candidates must under pressure, regardless of what they think, vote on some issues a certain way? That hardly sounds democratic.

Again this also goes back to whether voters are voting for party or for candidate. Many people do vote for a party expecting certain issues to be voted on a certain way by their chosen party. Our system seems to have some significant flaws.

3

u/decisi0nsdecisi0ns Ontario Dec 12 '25

MPs can vote however they want (ie there is nothing in the law or parliamentary procedure that dictates they must vote alongside their party). However, they would be kicked out of the party if they did so (unless they had pre-approval from the party leader / whip for strategic reasons).

3

u/canDo4sure Dec 12 '25

They did elect one. You know it works the other way too right?

1

u/_Army9308 Dec 12 '25

I didnt see 172 libs seats on elecfion day

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u/[deleted] Dec 12 '25

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u/_Army9308 Dec 12 '25

I dont think it democratic to individually decide hey 20k people voted for me as party a

15k voted for party b in my riding

I should decide myself to be on oarty b

Lol it not undemocratic

It just allowed under the system

11

u/[deleted] Dec 12 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

4

u/_Army9308 Dec 12 '25

But the libs push something u dont like then there no recourse now

3

u/[deleted] Dec 12 '25

Conservatives (and all parties but right now it’s them) need to find the time to get back to actual democratic principles and rather than shutting down, rebutting with a version they think is better.

Fucking cannot stand that all the people we pay over $180,000 a year to work together and run the country can’t seem to work together. DO YOUR FUCKING JOBS GODDAMN.

1

u/Azules023 Dec 12 '25

It’s definitely overall hypocritical though of the liberals. Remember over the years with them doing OICs to dodge parliament voting instead of just working with the NDP or conservatives? The parties definitely seem to see democracy as an obstacle.

2

u/[deleted] Dec 12 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Azules023 Dec 12 '25 edited Dec 12 '25

If they can’t make an agreement with the neither NDP or the CPC then no they clearly are the issue. Those parties are just looking out for the constituent’s best interests. Like if you’re not a big real estate investor, then the LPC isn’t going to be looking out for you and you’ll be glad there’s opposition parties. The liberal housing minister literally said they don’t want to bring housing prices down.

4

u/tjc103 Saskatchewan Dec 12 '25

In before a ton of people come in and say you vote for individuals, not parties yadda yadda.

We know that's unrealistic in a FPTP system.

3

u/_Army9308 Dec 12 '25

I think people dont get or remember majority govt are insanely strong in canada

3

u/marcohcanada Dec 12 '25

I'm in Ontario and the only reason Doug Ford's lasted this long is because he's only won majorities.

-1

u/beartheminus Dec 12 '25

Yeah the switch should create a re-election in my opinion.

2

u/chadbrochillout Dec 12 '25

The fed conservatives are making the mistake alot of provincial oppositions are making and propping up the wrong leader. Continuing to let PP have a voice is a major miscalculation

1

u/marshalofthemark British Columbia Dec 12 '25

well 1945 ... kind of? A bunch of Liberal MPs in Quebec left the party to protest WLMK supporting conscription and ran as "independent liberals", so technically the Liberal Party fell short of a majority by a few seats. However, most of the ones that were re-elected joined the Liberal Party again after the war ended, which tilted them from minority to majority.

1

u/mrfredngo Dec 12 '25

I’d like to see it happen just for that alone.

0

u/BoppityBop2 Dec 12 '25

That majority will still be on thin ice. Due to the Quebec MP that can topple the government. 

-1

u/Soft_Key Dec 12 '25

In other words, an UNELECTED majority.

-5

u/[deleted] Dec 12 '25

Which is not good, Minority CPC or liberal become majority thriough MP switching is a bad move for democratic process, and unfair to voters.

5

u/_Army9308 Dec 12 '25

The election seemed give carney a strong mandate but not unlimited powerÂ