A note on party switchers.

AuthorMorton, Desmond

Recent high profile examples of Members of Parliament who have changed parties has raised a number of questions about the frequency of such behaviour as well as political and ethical questions. This article is based on a study, originally prepared for the Office of the House of Commons Ethics Commission in August 2005. It is reproduced by permission of the author and the Office of the Ethics Commissioner.

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The institution of political parties, with their unifying discipline, makes possible Canada's version of parliamentary government. It is the logical, even inevitable, result of our nineteenth century belief in "responsible government". It fulfils our constitutional goal of "Peace", and "Order", though its critics may deny that it also guarantees "Good Government". Still, most Canadians regularly demonstrate a commitment to stability in government, while achieving, as Professor David Docherty has observed, a notable instability in parliamentary representation. (1)

Party Discipline in Canada

Canadian party discipline is, of course, a contrast to the comparable party function in the U.S. Congress. In both regimes, governing parties exercise discipline through access to a "spoils" system. (2)

Like most divergences from the American model, rigid party discipline raises Canadian doubts, particularly among citizens and regions who feel alienated by many government decisions. This has inspired a recurrent demand from Western Canada and occasionally from Quebec for MPs who will act as delegates from their constituencies. That has led, from the era of the Progressives, to the corresponding obligation of reforming parties to make their members adhere to party doctrine. It is no coincidence that the Progressives, Social Credit, the CCF and Reform-Canadian Alliance have had more switchers over the period studied (1921-2005) than the two traditional Canadian parties. Does it take more "discipline" to be undisciplined? In the atmosphere of the post-1993 election, the decision by the Chretien Liberals to ignore their promise to repeal the Goods and Services Tax, justified York South-Weston MP John Nunziata to vote against his party in the full knowledge that he would be suspended from his party's caucus. He was joined, afterwards, by Dennis Mills who quietly resigned the Liberal whip to share in the protest, though he returned to his party caucus soon after. (3)

Sheila Copps adopted a different, braver and much more costly strategy by resigning her seat and winning re-election in her riding of Hamilton East. By-elections are expensive for the federal treasury and for competing candidates, and very few Canadian MPs have followed Copps' example.

Table 1 on the following page shows the number of Party Switches per Year from 1921 to August 1, 2005.

Different Views of Party Discipline

Constituency control over a member of parliament or legislative assembly remains a recurrent theme in Canadian political discontents. (4) The Progressives offered a dramatic introduction of the principle by winning 65 primarily rural and Western seats in the 1921 election and forcing the victorious Liberals into a minority government by denying them constituencies they might otherwise have won. Though the Progressives had the second largest caucus, they rejected the conventions of party discipline and refused to form the Official Opposition. This was a major political bonus for the Conservatives and left the Progressives largely impotent. In W.L. Mackenzie King's notable phrase, Progressives became "Liberals in a Hurry". Two members switched immediately to the Liberals to play at least some role in King's government; others followed, as "Liberal Progressives" Still others, mostly members of an informal parliamentary "Ginger Group of radical Labour and Progressive MPs, broke away to take up a United Farmers' of Alberta label and, eventually, to...

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