Partys & Politics

In the Canadian system of government, we don't vote for a Prime Minister directly, or for a party, or for an ideology. We vote for a person -- a Member of Parliament. One of the side effects of voting for a person is that sometimes that person's views are not identical with his or her party's.

Case in point: Bill Casey, who yesterday voted against his party's budget and was promptly booted from the Conservative caucus (I am amused to read today that McKay had said they wouldn't be punishing any dissenters, in part because I can't see any party not punishing someone who voted against something as major as a budget).

I'm not going to get into whether Casey's right or wrong in his contention that this budget will cost Atlantic Canada money. But the relationship between a person and his or her party interests me. I don't think it's stretching to say that, for the majority of Canadians, a vote is at least as much for a political party, a platform, and/or a leader as it is for the individual running in that riding. And yet the individual has the power to act completely contrary to the party, the platform, the leader. David Emerson's the most blatant example yet, treating political parties as competing job offers, but he's far from the only MP to leave a party or change parties while in office.

The ability of an MP to make a principled stand is an important one, I think. If MPs weren't expected to ultimately make up their own minds on every vote, there would be no point in voting. And, really, no point in electing anyone besides the Prime Minister. Then Harper could just appoint whoever he wanted to be Ministers, without even having to put them in the Senate.

And yet. Are MPs still representing their constituents' wishes when they leave the party those constituents voted for?

Floor-crossing is a funny thing. It's hard to justify, and so often it looks opportunistic. MPs who sit as independants seem more honourable, but if they're voting with a party other than the one they used to belong to, is the effect any different?

I suppose the message, if I have one, is this: the Canadian electorate is too focussed on national politics, on the leaders and on perceptions of the parties (thanks, consolidated national media!), and not focussed enough on the individuals they're actually electing. You might not always be able to predict your future MP's actions, but maybe you can get a sense of whether their sticking points line up with yours or not.