opinion

MP Chris d'Entremont is applauded by his new colleagues after crossing the floor to join the Liberal Caucus.

Why did the Conservative MP cross the floor? If you silently murmured “to get to the other side” you would not be far wrong. Politics is mostly about clans, and sometimes it really is as simple as “I feel more kin with their’n than our’n.”

To change parties, however, is a far more wrenching thing than the original decision to take up with one rather than the other. It is not unknown in our politics, but it is unusual. From 1867 to 2015 nearly 300 sitting MPs changed party status in one way or another (the Library of Parliament puts the current number at 307).

Once you exclude those who moved from or to independent status, however, and those whose affiliation “changed

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