{"id":6961,"date":"2025-11-06T14:51:19","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T17:51:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/11\/06\/canadian-history-is-dotted-with-floor-crossers-voters-havent-always-been-thrilled\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T14:51:19","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T17:51:19","slug":"canadian-history-is-dotted-with-floor-crossers-voters-havent-always-been-thrilled","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/2025\/11\/06\/canadian-history-is-dotted-with-floor-crossers-voters-havent-always-been-thrilled\/","title":{"rendered":"Canadian history is dotted with floor-crossers. Voters haven\u2019t always been thrilled"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Politics\u00b7NewTraitor, shameful, brave, principled. There\u2019s a spectrum of terms used to describe MPs who cross the floor. But history shows us there\u2019s one word that doesn\u2019t always stick with politicians who shed one party affiliation for another: re-electable.Floor-crossing often met with outrage, but nothing in the rules to stop itCatharine Tunney  \u00b7 CBC News  \u00b7 Posted: Nov 06, 2025 4:00 AM EST | Last Updated: 1 hour agoListen to this articleEstimated 6 minutesThe audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.Prime Minister Mark Carney walks with MP Chris d\u2019Entremont, who crossed the floor from Conservative caucus to join the Liberals, on Wednesday. (Justin Tang\/The Canadian Press)Traitor, shameful, brave, principled.There\u2019s a spectrum of terms used to describe MPs who cross the floor. But history shows us there\u2019s one word that doesn\u2019t always stick when Canadian politicians shed one party affiliation for another: re-electable.Jaws dropped in Ottawa following the revelation that longtime Conservative Chris d\u2019Entremont is joining the federal Liberal caucus \u2014 with Prime Minister Mark Carney hinting others could follow.Floor-crossing is a political phenomenon dating back to Confederation. But a dive into the record books shows it has increasingly come at an electoral price.\u201cSwitching parties is an extremely risky move that almost always hurts a politician\u2019s chances of re-election,\u201d said Semra Sevi, assistant professor in the University of Toronto\u2019s political science department.She tracked every MP who switched parties from Confederation to 2015. The paper found that up until the mid-20th century, floor-crossers received nearly the same vote share in the election immediately after they changed parties as the one before.But since the 1970s, their fortunes have declined, she said.\u201cAs parties become institutionalized, the electoral cost of switching has rose dramatically. So that makes political survival outside of one\u2019s party increasingly unlikely,\u201d Sevi said.\u201cThere are rare instances of success. So time will tell if this will be one of them.\u201dOver the years, hundreds of MPs have changed affiliations \u2014 some sit as an Independent or start their own party, while some of the most memorable cases involve joining their former rivals. Switches labelled as \u2018opportunistic\u2019Sevi said an MP\u2019s chances of getting re-elected after changing parties often depend on whether voters buy their reasons.D\u2019Entremont said he no longer felt represented in Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre\u2019s party and pointed to his \u201cnegative\u201d approach to politics.\u201cSwitching is often seen as opportunistic, so it harms credibility,\u201d Sevi said.\u201cThis is a switch that is happening about seven months after the election was held. So it really depends if the voters in his constituency agree or not [with] his reasons.\u201dWATCH | Chris d\u2019Entremont\u2019s constituents react:Chris d\u2019Entremont\u2019s constituents react to floor crossingOn Tuesday, the MP for Acadie-Annapolis confirmed he left the Conservative caucus to join the governing Liberals. Taryn Grant has the story.As a more progressive conservative, d\u2019Entremont might be able to sell his decision to constituents in Acadie-Annapolis without rebuff at the ballot box.The riding, previously West Nova, has voted red and blue over the years.D\u2019Entremont squeezed out re-election in April by just 533 votes.While there may be political consequences(and name calling)for changing party affiliation, there\u2019s nothing to prevent it.There have been unsuccessful attempts to force a floor-crossing MP to seek re-election under the new party banner through a byelection, but those bills failed to become law. Notable floor-crossings through the yearsJenica Atwin became the first Green MP to be elected outside of British Columbia during the 2019 election and helped grow the party\u2019s footprint in the House.Two years later she crossed to sit with Justin Trudeau\u2019s Liberals, pointing to party infighting including over issues like the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Bucking Sevi\u2019s trend, she was re-elected as a Liberal that same year. Atwin did not reoffer in this year\u2019s general election.In 2018 Leona Alleslev left the Liberals to join the Opposition benches, condemning Trudeau\u2019s leadership. She was re-elected the next year but was defeated in the 2021 election.WATCH | Alleslev defects to Conservatives:Liberal MP Leona Alleslev defects to Conservative PartyThe move gives Andrew Scheer a bilingual female MP from a suburban Toronto riding that will be key in order for him to win the next election.Eve Adams left the governing Conservatives to join the Liberal Party in early 2015, citing \u201cmean-spirited leadership\u201d as her motive. Adams\u2019s time asa Liberal was relatively short-lived. She ultimately lost the Liberal nomination to run in the 2015 election to Marco Mendicino.The early 2000s saw a number of defections, including a mass exodus from the Stockwell Day-led Canadian Alliance. MPs had grown increasingly disgruntled with Day\u2019s leadership and the party\u2019s disappointing election results.Former Conservative MP Eve Adams, left, is joined by Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau as she announces in 2015 that she is leaving the Conservative Party to join the Liberals. (Justin Tang\/The Canadian Press)Over the span of a few months 13, of the party\u2019s 66 MPs left or were suspended from the right-wing party. Some eventually rejoined while others went on to form the Democratic Representative Caucus.The schism ultimately led to Day\u2019s resignation and spurred a merger with the Progressive Conservative Party to create the modern Conservative Party.If d\u2019Entremont wants to return to the House after the next election he may want to take notes from fellow Nova Scotian Scott Brison, who just days after the merger on the right crossed the floor to sit with the Liberals. He defended the move saying he wanted to work with \u201ca party fuelled by bold ideas, not rigid ideologies.\u201dVoters in Kings-Hants returned him to the House election after election, often with large margins.Prime Minister Paul Martin welcomes defecting Conservative MP Belinda Stronach in 2005.  (Tom Hanson\/The Canadian Press)Perhaps the most dramatic floor-crossing in Canadian history belongs to Belinda Stronach, who not only joined the Liberals in 2005, a year after vying for the Conservative leadership, but ended a relationship in the process.Stronach had been dating Conservative Peter MacKay for a few months, before shocking the country when she revealed she\u2019d be joining then prime minister Paul Martin\u2019s cabinet. The additional vote allowed his minority government to hang on for a few more months before they were ultimately defeated.In an infamous interview, MacKay returned to his father\u2019s farm in Lorne, N.S., declaring his heart was \u201ca little banged up.\u201dThe Liberals would lose in the 2006 election, but Stronach won re-election in Newmarket-Aurora as a Liberal candidate by a greater margin than she had as a Conservative.That 2006 election saw another highly controversial switch. Prime Minister Stephen Harper shakes hands with his trade minister, David Emerson, in 2007. Emerson switched parties two weeks after an election.  (Chuck Stoody\/The Canadian Press)Just days after winning the riding of Vancouver-Kingsway as a Liberal, David Emerson switched parties and joined Stephen Harper\u2019s Conservative cabinet.Emerson argued joining government was the best way to serve his constituents. But the decision lead to chorus of outrage from Liberals who had worked on his campaign and allegations Harper had offered an \u201cinducement\u201d to Emerson, contrary to the Conflict of Interest Act.It sparked outrage and triggered an ethics investigation. Both Harper and Emerson were cleared by the ethics commissioner. Emerson did not run in the 2008 election.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Politics\u00b7NewTraitor, shameful, brave, principled. There\u2019s a spectrum of terms used to describe MPs who cross the floor. But history shows us there\u2019s one word that doesn\u2019t always stick with politicians who shed one party affiliation for another: re-electable.Floor-crossing often met with outrage, but nothing in the rules to stop itCatharine Tunney \u00b7 CBC News \u00b7 [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6962,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[118,129,1],"tags":[116,128],"class_list":["post-6961","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indigenous","category-nova-scotia","category-uncategorized","tag-indigenous","tag-nova-scotia"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6961","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6961"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6961\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6961"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6961"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/service.codeus.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6961"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}