{"id":98921,"date":"2025-11-07T03:00:46","date_gmt":"2025-11-07T08:00:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=98921"},"modified":"2025-11-06T15:58:40","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T20:58:40","slug":"crossing-the-floor-in-parliament","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2025\/11\/07\/crossing-the-floor-in-parliament\/","title":{"rendered":"Crossing the floor in Parliament"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s not an everyday thing, but I saw someone mention on social media that there had been over 300 floor-crossings since Confederation. The latest Member of Parliament to switch parties &#8230; to literally walk across the floor in Parliament to join Carney&#8217;s Liberal party is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.brianlilley.com\/p\/floor-crossers-should-they-be-banned\" target=\"_blank\">Nova Scotia&#8217;s Chris d&#8217;Entremont<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/Tablesalt13\/status\/1986219186385752164\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"float:right; padding: 0px 0px 10px 25px\" src=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Chris-Dentremont-former-NS-Conservative-MP-480x435.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"480\" height=\"435\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-98922\" srcset=\"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Chris-Dentremont-former-NS-Conservative-MP-480x435.jpg 480w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Chris-Dentremont-former-NS-Conservative-MP-705x640.jpg 705w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Chris-Dentremont-former-NS-Conservative-MP-150x136.jpg 150w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Chris-Dentremont-former-NS-Conservative-MP-768x697.jpg 768w, https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/Chris-Dentremont-former-NS-Conservative-MP.jpg 1045w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 480px) 100vw, 480px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The speculation in Ottawa about floor crossers is getting silly, some of the names being pushed don&#8217;t make any sense. Which makes me think that this is really an attempt by the Liberals to try and destabilize the Conservatives.<\/p>\n<p>Sorry, that would be &#8220;destablise&#8221; in Mark Carney&#8217;s new English but more on that shortly.<\/p>\n<p>We have seen Liberals push name after name including Chris d&#8217;Entremont who did cross, but others who have said they have no interest in crossing. That was the case for Dominique Vien the Conservative MP from Quebec&#8217;s south shore who had to post a video after jerks like me published her name following weeks of speculation.<\/p>\n<p>If you don&#8217;t speak French, let me summarize, or sumarise in Carney English. She says that she&#8217;s heard the rumours that she would be leaving the Conservative caucus to sit as a Liberal or an independent, but that&#8217;s not true. She states clearly that she is and will remain a Conservative and that she doesn&#8217;t like Mark Carney&#8217;s budget.<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, Jo\u00ebl Godin, the MP for Portneuf\u2014Jacques-Cartier a riding northwest of Quebec City, who has been named as a possible floor crosser declined to answer questions entering caucus on Wednesday. Does that mean he&#8217;s ready to cross or not just putting up with the BS?<\/p>\n<p>Conservative insiders tell me that he won&#8217;t be changing teams anytime soon.<\/p>\n<p>The rumour mill is insane, with Liberals pushing the idea that all kinds of Conservatives are looking to jump ship. I&#8217;ve had several Liberals tell me that Michael Chong has been looking to cross the floor, an idea that is so ridiculous that I didn&#8217;t even call Chong to ask him because anyone floating that doesn&#8217;t know the man or conservative politics.<\/p>\n<p>After I mentioned that on 580 CFRA in Ottawa, Chong called me to assure me that he wasn&#8217;t crossing to the Liberals. Michael, I never doubted you.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s doubtful that other names Liberals are pushing will come to fruition.<\/p>\n<p>What is clear is that Carney and the Liberals are reaching out to Conservative MPs and making them offers to switch parties. Are they making illegal offers? I&#8217;d really like to know what has been put forward.<\/p>\n<p>Is a &#8220;comfy landing&#8221; being offered for those that will cross? It wouldn&#8217;t be the first time that kind of thing has been offered.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>As to the particular motivations for d&#8217;Entremont decamping to the Liberal benches, discussions on the social media site formerly known as <em>Twitter<\/em> indicate that he just barely got elected this time around, that he&#8217;d been fired by Pierre Poilievre as Deputy Speaker, and he decided he had a better chance of getting back into Parliament as a Liberal in the next election. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.junonews.com\/p\/liberals-courted-dentremont-for-years\" target=\"_blank\">Quinn Patrick<\/a> reports that the Liberals had been trying to get d&#8217;Entremont to join them for quite some time:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Industry Minister M\u00e9lanie Joly said the Liberals had been courting former Conservative MP Chris d&#8217;Entremont behind the scenes for five years before he ultimately crossed the aisle.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve been trying to recruit him for a long time,&#8221; Joly told reporters in French on Parliament Hill on Wednesday. &#8220;Finally, he saw the light.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>D&#8217;Entremont had served as a Conservative MP for six years, after first being elected in the 2019 election.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>As several people pointed out, that conveniently meant he&#8217;s qualified for the platinum-plated MP pension plan &#8230; but I&#8217;m sure that&#8217;s not why he switched parties.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Liberal MP Kody Blois, who also represents a riding in Nova Scotia, confirmed that he and d&#8217;Entremont had been speaking &#8220;for a long time about the ways in which we can collaborate.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s great to see Mr. d&#8217;Entremont join. If there&#8217;s other members of Parliament feeling the same way, again, I think we&#8217;re always welcome to those conversations,&#8221; said Blois.<\/p>\n<p>While Blois didn&#8217;t explicitly say he had been attempting to enlist d&#8217;Entremont, he said the Liberals are a big-tent party with room to accept more &#8220;moderate&#8221; conservatives.<\/p>\n<p>When asked if the Carney government was actively trying to recruit more MPs, Blois said that &#8220;wouldn&#8217;t be a conversation I&#8217;m going to have right here in front of the media.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The former Conservative MP met with Prime Minister Mark Carney at a post-budget media conference on Wednesday, saying he didn&#8217;t believe his values as a &#8220;red Tory&#8221; were being &#8220;represented.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I didn&#8217;t find I was represented there &#8230; my ideals of an easterner, of a red Tory and quite honestly of trying to find ways to find solutions and help the community rather than trying to oppose everything that&#8217;s happening,&#8221; said d&#8217;Entremont.<\/p>\n<p>He also alluded to the possibility of other Conservative MPs &#8220;in the same boat&#8221; but stopped short of naming anyone specific, saying he would let them share their stories &#8220;if the time comes.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>However, he has been the only one to cross the aisle thus far.<\/p>\n<p>Conservatives and their supporters have <a href=\"https:\/\/truenorthwire.com\/2025\/11\/conservatives-blast-turncoat-mp-for-joining-liberals-to-advance-ambitions\/\" target=\"_blank\">accused<\/a> d&#8217;Entremont of betraying his constituents and his values in pursuit of his own ambitions.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s not an everyday thing, but I saw someone mention on social media that there had been over 300 floor-crossings since Confederation. The latest Member of Parliament to switch parties &#8230; to literally walk across the floor in Parliament to join Carney&#8217;s Liberal party is Nova Scotia&#8217;s Chris d&#8217;Entremont: The speculation in Ottawa about floor [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,28,53],"tags":[697,431,908,524,458],"class_list":["post-98921","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-cancon","category-media","category-politics","tag-budget","tag-conservatism","tag-liberalparty","tag-novascotia","tag-parliament"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2hpV6-pJv","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98921","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=98921"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98921\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":98926,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/98921\/revisions\/98926"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=98921"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=98921"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=98921"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}