NDP MP Lori Idlout’s decision to abandon her party for the Liberals has sparked a flurry of interest in the phenomenon of floor-crossing. But many commentators have been focusing on the wrong question, namely, how many MPs have crossed the floor recently. Their interest in exact numbers is seemingly based on the assumption that this practice, which most of them view very negatively, has increased over time.
If so, they will be sorely disappointed. As a detailed survey by researchers at the Library of Parliament notes, the most floor crossings ever took place under John A Macdonald (9). Meanwhile the recent governments of Justin Trudeau (1), Paul Martin (2) and Stephen Harper (3) are far behind.
Nor, as some have speculated, does this phenomenon appear to be more common in a minority situation. In fact, the second highest number of such crossings occurred under Jean Chretien (8) and, like Macdonald, in a majority government setting. Moreover all floor crossers do not move from an opposition party to the governing party. Former Liberal MP Leona Alleslev demonstrated this recently by leaving the Trudeau Liberals in 2018 to join the opposition Conservatives.
In short, the straight numbers game is pointless. Without context they tell us almost nothing. The relevant questions to ask are not ‘how many MPs have done this’, but ‘who, why and when’. Put another way, all floor crossings are not equal. Nor are all floor crossers ideologically shallow and/or opportunistic, as they are commonly portrayed by their critics. If we are to understand the motives that drive this phenomenon, we need to look at the situation from a far more nuanced perspective. And when individual cases are examined with these more detailed questions in mind, it quickly becomes apparent that there are three distinct categories of floor crossers, each with quite different motivations.
To begin with, there have been some noteworthy cases over time when a specific issue has been considered of such overriding importance that it trumps party allegiance. In Macdonald’s time, for example, it was MPs from the Anti-Confederation Party, which collapsed during the first parliament, that joined his Conservative Party en masse, including the former Anti-Confederation Party leader, Joseph Howe. A similar dominant issue emerged during World War I over the conscription crisis. However, although sixteen sitting Liberal MPs ran in the 1917 “conscription election” under Borden’s pro-conscription Conservative banner, only one MP actually crossed the floor during the parliamentary session, and almost all of the Liberal MPs returned to their original party after the war ended.
A second category is the case of longstanding members of a political party, with deep philosophical convictions about what their party represents, who feel that their party (and/or its leader) has actually left them. Here we have the example of Scott Brison, a veteran Progressive Conservative MP from Atlantic Canada who crossed the floor to the Liberals in 2003, shortly after the Progressive Conservative Party “merged” with the Canadian Alliance Party for form the new Conservative Party. That development was widely seen as a hostile Alliance takeover of the Progressive Conservatives, and one that resulted in the party being led by former Alliance MP Stephen Harper, not Progressive Conservative MP Peter Mackay. (Although not technically floor-crossing, the takeover also led former PC leader and sitting MP Joe Clark, along with longstanding PC MPs John Herron and Andre Bachand, to leave the newly branded Conservative caucus to sit as Independent MPs.) In a similar vein, three Progressive Conservative MPs from Quebec had earlier crossed the floor to the Liberals after the party’s leader when they were elected, Jean Charest, was replaced by Joe Clark in 2000.
One could easily place the recent defection of two MPs from the Conservative caucus in this category. Under Pierre Poilievre, who assumed the leadership in late 2023, the party moved increasingly further to the right, into territory that included extreme populist rhetoric, support for conspiracy theories and hardline positions on issues such as crime, immigration and so-called “woke” policies, positions that reportedly left many of the more moderate members of his caucus unhappy and ill at ease. And, despite his lengthy political career representing an Ottawa riding, Poilievre also increasingly emphasized policies designed to favour Alberta and the oil and gas industry without question. Little wonder, then, that Conservative MP Chris d’Entremont, who served for 16 years as a Progressive Conservative MLA and cabinet minister in Nova Scotia before moving to federal politics in 2019, was increasingly unhappy with the direction his party was taking under its new leader. The same could also be said of his Conservative caucus colleague Matt Jeneroux, who served as a Conservative MLA representing a progressive Edmonton riding from 2012-15, before he moved to federal politics as a Conservative MP in 2015, long before Poilievre took the helm.
The Conservatives’ disastrous April 2025 campaign, in which Poilievre failed to address the key issues most Canadians were expecting, appears to have been a tipping point. Not surprisingly, then, both men issued explanations for their defection which emphasized that the Carney government’s moderation, values and principles appeared to be more in line with their own than those of the party and leader they were leaving.
This is also the case for the third Conservative MP to cross the floor to the Liberals, Michael Ma, who referred to the “steady, moderate and practical approach” of Prime Minister Mark Carney, and stressed that his “principles have not changed.” At the same time, Ma would also fit with the third category of floor crosser described below, as he is a former IT and business executive who was only elected for the first time in the April 2025 federal election and did not have close ties with the party he represented.
This third category of motivation for floor crossing generally involves an individual rather than a group. It is also most common among recently elected MPs or those (such as star candidates or individuals chosen for their suitability in a particular riding, such as by ethnicity, professional credentials or name recognition) who previously had only a tangential connection, if any, to the party they were chosen to represent. (Some may recall Jodi Wilson-Raybould declaring, after her departure from the Trudeau cabinet and then the Liberal caucus into which she had been personally recruited by the prime minister, that she was “never a party person.”)
One of the most dramatic examples of this tenuous connection to party philosophy on the part of some floor crossers is that of David Emerson, a former titan of industry recruited by the Martin Liberals to run in a Vancouver riding in 2004. Emerson by his own admission agreed to run for them because he wanted to get things done relative to his business-oriented agenda, notably by negotiating a major softwood lumber deal with the United States that he believed would greatly benefit his province. Once elected he was immediately appointed Minister of Industry, a post he held from 2004 until the Liberal defeat at the hands of the Harper Conservatives in 2006. Literally within weeks of that defeat Emerson then astonished almost everyone by crossing the floor to the Conservatives. He was immediately sworn in as Minister of International Trade and given responsibility for the Vancouver Olympics, posts which allowed the Conservatives to claim they had some representation in the city where they had just been shut out in the election. Furious Liberals, meanwhile, argued Emerson had betrayed his constituents, since the actual Conservative candidate had finished a very distant third, far behind both Emerson as the Liberal candidate and the NDP’s Ian Waddell.
Another noteworthy example of an individual’s personal motivation for floor crossing is that of Belinda Stronach, whose chequered career as a politician is likely unparalleled. A businesswoman with no political experience, in 2003 she nevertheless decided to run for the leadership of the newly merged Conservative Party against former Alliance leader Stephen Harper and former Ontario PC minister Tony Clement. Her campaign, funded in part by the Magna corporation of which she was a senior executive, was widely criticized as politically immature and unprofessional. Nevertheless she laid out a number of positions which were very much at odds with her fellow candidates and the party membership as whole. These included support for abortion rights, gun control, same sex marriage and a number of other socially progressive views that caused her opponents to pejoratively label her a Red Tory. Although she lost the leadership to Harper, she successfully ran in the Ontario riding of Newmarket-Aurora in the 2004 federal election that followed, and then found herself on the opposition benches facing a Liberal minority government. Over the course of the next year she was publicly at odds with Harper on a number of other issues, such as the importance of international trade, the autopact and urban issues.
In this context it is hardly surprising that Stronach crossed the floor to the Martin Liberals less than a year later, in May 2005, citing her ongoing disagreement with Harper on a range of issues. However the widespread outrage and criticism of her move by her former Conservative colleagues focused not on policy disagreements but on the fact that her switch to the Liberals allowed the Martin government to avoid defeat on a confidence motion and avoid an election that Harper had been wanting to force. As a result of her defection the Liberals clung to power for another year and Stronach immediately was appointed Minister of Human Resources and Skiills Development. Adding insult to injury, although the Conservatives won the eventual 2006 election they were held to a minority while Stronach, who ran this time as a Liberal, was re-elected and remained in the Opposition Liberal caucus until her voluntary departure in 2008.
It is also important to note that in both of these cases the individual MP in question was rewarded with a ministerial appointment. While such appointments may be a significant enticement, there are other considerations that individuals might request in exchange for their move to another party, such as support for projects in their riding, which brings us to the recent move of NDP MP Lori Idlout to the Liberals.
Idlout, an Inuk lawyer representing the vast constituency of Nunavut, was first elected as an NDP MP in 2021. However that late fall election unexpectedly delivered a minority government for the Trudeau Liberals. Within a few months the NDP, under then leader Jagmeet Singh, had signed a Supply and Confidence Agreement that effectively kept the Liberals in power indefinitely. As a result the NDP was less visible, and less critical of government measures than might otherwise have been expected from an opposition party, and certainly did not offer Idlout any exposure to typical NDP parliamentary behaviour. It is also worth noting that the territorial legislature does not operate along party lines and emphasizes consensus; political parties are only represented in federal elections.
The subsequent 2025 federal election produced an even greater dilemma for Idlout and the NDP. Their caucus was reduced from 25 MPs to only 7, and they consequently did not qualify for official party status. (A minimum of 12 MPs is required.) Without party status, the party’s MPs were not assigned spots for questions in Question Period and depended on the occasional generosity of the Speaker to intervene. Without party status the NDP MPs were not members of any parliamentary committee, where much of the important work of parliament is actually accomplished. And without party status, the small caucus and their interim leader were not allocated any money at all for staff, research or other supportive activities. In short, the NDP MPs were both invisible and impotent. Worse still, with the exception of interim leader and veteran BC MP Don Davies, the 6 other MPs were neither well-known nor well established parliamentarians. It also quickly became apparent that they had little in common and held differing opinions on almost all issues of note. As a result Davies was not even able to provide assurance to the Carney Liberals that he could deliver 7 votes to them in the event of a non-confidence motion, an extraordinary situation which few commentators emphasized sufficiently when describing the precarity of the Carney minority.
With this in mind it is hardly surprising that Idlout eventually made the decision to join the Liberal caucus, a move she emphasized was done to ensure the issues important to her constituents would be heard and government support hopefully obtained. Nor is it surprising that her fellow NDP MPs and party members generally were highly critical of the move, which they viewed as traitorous and particularly devastating in light of the party’s ongoing difficulties.
Regardless of motivation, however, what is unique about the current flurry of floor-crossings to the Carney Liberals is that they may well be sufficient in number to propel the government into majority territory and a somewhat less uncertain parliamentary tenure. This is in part due to the closeness of the election result – with 169 seats, the Liberals on the day after the election were already only 3 seats short of a tie and 4 seats short of a razor-thin majority of 173. Although there are now 3 byelections in progress due to Liberal resignations and a court ruling undoing a result, it is almost certain that two of those ridings will return in Liberal hands, while the third has a reasonable chance of remaining Liberal as well. If that should be the case, then this round of floor crossings will indeed have set a record, since no other federal minority government has ever moved to majority status on the basis of such crossings.
Both politicians and academics have offered two competing perspectives on the phenomenon of floor crossing, with some arguing it is an unacceptable violation of voter intentions that should not be allowed and others maintaining that in a Westminster parliamentary system party loyalty is too oppressive and individual MPs have every right to change their allegiance if they choose.[i]
At the end of the day, however, it is the voters in an MP’s riding who will have the final say. Historically, there have been few MPs who have been successful in retaining their seat under a different banner come the next election. A recent Angus Reid poll shows voters are conflicted on the question of floor crossing generally, with little consensus on either its validity or possible limitations.[ii] However it is clear that Conservative voters are currently far more opposed to the concept, and to the legitimacy of a minority government becoming a majority on this basis, than voters from all other parties. Nevertheless it is also true that some prominent floor crossers have retained their seat in a subsequent election in the not too distant past. Not only Belinda Stronach but Scott Brison, Jenna Atwin and Leona Altsev all were successful in their next encounter with voters under a new party label. Here too, there is some indication that the motivation behind the switch may well be something that voters both understand and take into consideration. It will be interesting to see the fate of the current crop of floor crossers in the next federal election. Personally, my money is on D’Entremont, Jeneroux and Idlout to succeed if they decide to re-offer.
[i] For further reading on this debate, see for example:
https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/charting-floor-crossers-historic-9.7124302https://
https://www.policymagazine.ca/carneys-majority-shortcut-and-the-case-for-floor-crossing
https://cpsa-acsp.ca/documents/conference/2016/Sevi-Cochrane.pdf
[ii] https://angusreid.org/floor-crossing-liberals-conservatives-carney-majority-poilievre/
