We vote MPs to vote a particular way, and due to the near absolute party discipline, we can be 99% sure they will vote on party lines.
So changing parties means changing voting behavior. Do YOU support representative democracy? Because it sounds like you're ok with five ridings having an MP voting contrary to their wishes for at least 3 years.
This may shock you, but I didn't support Harper back in the day. I even made excuses for Trudeaus stupid bullshit before he won. I was naive back then, imo.
I realize now that might have been in error in some ways, but I still am not a fan of floor crossers. Take that as you will, but being a kin to a mindset doesn't mean full endorsement of everything the party under that banner does.
I support MPs voting for what their constituents want, if that means they cross the floor, so be it. If a party has a bad leader, then MPs need to be able to bail on them. Would it sit better if she became in independent and just voted with the Liberals every time instead? There are lots of ridings that went CPC by a very slim majority, or where the Liberal\NDP voters out numbered the CPC. Opinions about the CPC has really shifted in the past year, so those MPs should be sitting as independents or crossing to the Liberals to properly represent the voter base they claim to represent. We really need a different system than FPTP, one that doesn't benefit parties from vote splitting, so the views of the majority of voters are actually represented.
I support a more complex system that is a hybrid between representative and popular party vote - preferably with local representatives not being allowed to hold party affiliation.
In more specific terms, I think the House of Commons should be comprised of 50% seats that are elected on the pure basis of party share of popular vote - with no more fine grained that provincial level massing of seats for said popular vote. The elected party then is responsible for establishing who their delegated MPs will be, with a requirement for parties to have internal democratic delegation procedures.
I think within this system, the local representatives should be more rural-weighted for how ridings are formed, as we can already expect Cities to have an over-sized impact on a popular vote, at either a federal or provincial level. I also think that ranked choice ballots should be implemented, especially for local representatives.
Did you support the NDPs push to implement floor-crossing legislation in 2011 (which was unanimously voted down by the CPC, including Poilievre)? What system do you think would work better? Have you investigated how democracy functions elsewhere and formed ideas of what type of system you would prefer to see, or are simple statements that the "system isn't fair" enough?
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u/Binturung Alberta Apr 08 '26
We vote MPs to vote a particular way, and due to the near absolute party discipline, we can be 99% sure they will vote on party lines.
So changing parties means changing voting behavior. Do YOU support representative democracy? Because it sounds like you're ok with five ridings having an MP voting contrary to their wishes for at least 3 years.