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Many people think this is perfectly fine. Elections, it is well known, turn heavily on perceptions of the leader. On him rest the party’s electoral fortunes, and those of its candidates. Why should he not, then, have the power to decide who sits in caucus or stands as a candidate, given the potential for a rogue candidate to taint the party’s reputation, and his?

Photo by Sean Kilpatrick/The Canadian Press

For her part, Alleslev obviously did not need, or seek, her leader’s approval to defect to the opposition Conservatives (though she presumably needed the Conservative leader’s permission to join.) And yet many people would say she should not have had that option. She was elected as a Liberal, on the understanding she would sit as a Liberal and vote as a Liberal. Why should she be allowed to break faith with her electors?

Some jurisdictions, until recently including Manitoba, have gone so far as to ban the practice. Well, not absolutely: a member who wished to cross the floor could do so, provided he either sat as an independent until the next election, or resigned his seat and ran in a byelection.

I have some sympathy with this point of view. It would be foolish to suggest that MPs are elected wholly on the strength of their individual character and judgment. To the extent they are elected on the basis of their party brand — and opinion research shows it is usually much the greater factor — they should probably be obliged to seek their constituents’ approval before taking their seat as a member of a different party.

But when we say MPs are elected mostly on party affiliation, we are describing things as they are, not necessarily as they should be. That MPs are seen as creatures of their party is mostly because they are at most times forced, under Canada’s peculiarly ferocious system of party discipline, to vote with their party — which system is commonly defended, in perfectly circular logic, on the grounds that MPs are creatures of the party, who owe their seats to the party brand.

But there is no reason why votes in Parliament must always — or indeed ever — be whipped, nor would there be anything objectionable for a candidate for Parliament to dissociate himself from particular items in his party’s platform. MPs should ordinarily be honour-bound to vote for the things they ran on; they are under no obligation to vote for things they did not run on. And the more that candidates ran, and voted on, their personal views, the less it would matter whether they sat with one party or another. Party affiliations would be seen as broad guides to ideological leanings, not tribal blood oaths.