The punishment of David Christopherson, a New Democrat MP who last week voted his conscience in defiance of his party, is an example of party discipline run amok.

Christopherson was reportedly warned by NDP officials not to support a Conservative motion, of no legal consequence, condemning controversial new rules for organizations seeking a federal summer-jobs grant. Applying groups must now “attest” that their mandate respects the Charter of Rights, including abortion rights – a requirement some have said is an infringement on freedom of belief. On principle, Christopherson ignored his party, as he has rarely done in his nearly three decades as a legislator, and voted to denounce the rules.

“If the law is an ass, you have right to say so,” he later said. “You don’t have to bow and scrape and commit fealty.” For this little rebellion, it seems, he was stripped of his job as deputy chair of the powerful procedure and House affairs committee, despite his reputation for being exceptionally knowledgeable about the rules of Parliament. “I was warned that there would be consequences and that shoe has now dropped,” Christopherson said.

On the substance of the summer-jobs issue, Christopherson has a point. As the Star has previously argued, instead of focusing on what applicant groups would do with the grant money, the government has made an issue of what these organizations believe.

Moreover, in doing so, it handed a PR victory to anti-abortion militants, right-wingers and religious groups eager to spread fear that the Liberals are out to ban conservative beliefs. The government’s commitment to reproductive rights is admirable, as Christopherson himself agrees. But it’s not at all clear that the summer-jobs policy is actually helping that cause.

In any case, whatever one thinks of this controversy, surely Christopherson’s rebuke constitutes a blow to democracy.

As an MP, it’s your duty to manage the tensions between representing your party and its platform, representing your constituency and representing your conscience. Yet too often in modern politics, parties (all of them) demand MPs toe the line in every case, leaving no room for the concerns of local voters or individual representatives; no room for the sort of debate or dissent on which democracy thrives.

There are of course legitimate reasons to whip a vote. On issues core to a party’s platform, discipline makes sense; voters have a right to know that a party will deliver what it promised on the campaign trail. And surely party leaders have a responsibility to demand their representatives cast votes consistent with the Charter.

But constraints beyond that are constraints on democracy itself, relegating MPs to what the political scientist Alex Marland calls mere “brand ambassadors.” That’s not how parliamentary democracy is supposed to work.

Christopherson is not denying a woman’s right to choose, nor is he standing against any of the social democratic values that presumably make a New Democrat a New Democrat. Rather, he is making a case, on the basis of those very values, for freedom of belief. His is the sort of dissent a party should be careful to accommodate, not punish.