…thanks to the able assistance of both wings of the Librocon party, the Bloc rump—and Elizabeth May, that ardent defender of the democratic process.
Crossing the floor of the House of Commons—or moving a few seats down—will continue to take place with impunity. No by-elections will be necessary. An MP may betray the constituents who elected him or her, and they’ll just have to suck it up. What do they imagine their votes mean, anyway?
In fact, for millions of Canadians they’re not worth the paper they’re printed on. Our first-past-the-post electoral system ensures that their votes are wasted. what do a few more useless ballots matter in the scheme of things?
It’s a well-established fact that most electors vote for the party, not the representative running in their ridings. Maybe that shouldn’t be the case, but it is. And to snatch their right to choose away from them, which is what happens when the person they elect joins up with the people they voted against, renders the four-year balloting exercise even more irrelevant and meaningless.
The defeat of Bill C-306 means that voters will still have to wait for years to punish the turncoats at the polls. Meanwhile, those slimy opportunists will continue to receive Cabinet posts or other inducements—bribery, in a word—to traduce their constituents and subvert democracy.
Only the NDP supported C-306. Another good reason to give the other parties, all of which have now taken a decisive stand against democracy, a pass in 2015.