No one likes red tape, everyone hates paying taxes and we all get
irked when the little guy falls through the cracks.

Those things unnerve us, but we live with them, because we have
accepted that bureaucracy begets red tape, taxes are a necessary
evil and every once in a while, the little guy wins.

However, the single most irritating facet of the workings of
Parliament is the facility with which an MP can cross the floor. It
is an affront to democracy and it must be remedied.

Let us be clear: Joe Peschisolido is not at issue here.

It is nearly universally understood that his defection last week
from the Alliance to the Liberal party was the act of an opportunist looking to further his own political ambitions and nothing more.

That story has been told.

What needs to be addressed is the mechanism that allows for him, and so many before him, to sit with a party against which he campaigned so vehemently.

MPs get disgruntled and people change their minds. Such is life.

But when individuals do not fulfill their obligations -- contractual
or moral -- consequences always follow. Ottawa must adopt a policy that more closely resembles this fact of life.

An MP should never have the option of crossing the floor. Such an
action is nothing short of a betrayal of our electoral process.

Good conscience

If parliamentarians can no longer ally themselves in good conscience with the party under whose banner they were elected, they must either sit as independents or resign their seats in protest.

If the MP should decide to run again, with the backing of another
party, he could do so in a byelection.

An argument can be made that by mandating byelections,
fickle-hearted members of Parliament would be forced to take a
second look at staying put or sitting as independents.

If MPs still felt that they needed to align themselves with another
party, a byelection would empower the voter to determine their fate.

Such a scenario would most certainly improve the status quo, but it would not completely resolve the matter.

When Sheila Copps resigned her seat in protest over her government's GST flip-flop, she was praised for her bravery and conviction.

What seems to be forgotten is that her resignation was immediately followed by her victory in a byelection -- due in no small part to the Copps family name, which is nearly sacred in her riding of Hamilton East -- at a cost of hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars.

Essentially, Canadians paid out of pocket so that Copps could clear her conscience and sleep a little better.

Though the Copps situation was not a floor-crossing incident, she
did wave the same "crisis-of-confidence" flag seen last week.

Calling a byelection is always an expensive proposition, sometimes a hollow exercise and should never be viewed as the complete solution to this quandary.

Total solution

A total solution must focus as much on political parties themselves as the individual MP.

A system must be put in place that sends a message to MP and party alike that inviting an adversary into your fold carries a price. To this end, the administrative costs of a byelection must be
shouldered by the party benefiting from the defection.

When faced with the prospect of gaining one more foot soldier but losing hundreds of thousands of dollars to Elections Canada, a party might not be so quick to make room for yesterday's political enemy at its table.

There will always be red tape and taxes, and little guys will get
stepped on forever, but the damaging act of crossing the floor is
not an evil with which we must live.

------------------------------------------------------------
Read Mulroney on Sundays and watch him on talktv's the chatroom and Canada AM on CTV. Reach him at benedictmulroney@hotmail.com.
Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com.
http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/mulroney.html