Letters: Crossing the floor must not be normalized

Re: “Tory MP Tees up liberal majority” (NP Montreal, April 9)

Floor crossing, as it is currently practised, should not simply be discouraged —it should be prohibited.

Voters do not elect individuals in isolation. They choose a party, a platform and a political direction. When a candidate is elected under one banner, that is the mandate they are entrusted with. It is not theirs to reinterpret once the votes are counted.

For an elected official to cross the floor and sit with another party, whether framed as a matter of “principle” or more plausibly the result of political incentive, is to override the expressed will of the electorate.

It is not evolution; it is substitution. The voters’ choice is replaced with the politician’s self-interest.

If an elected official genuinely believes their views no longer align with the party under which they were elected, there is a simple and principled path forward: resign, trigger a by-election and seek a new mandate under your new affiliation.

Anything less allows politicians to change the outcome of an election after the fact.

If we continue to accept this practice, we reduce elections to little more than a preliminary step in a process that can be reshaped behind closed doors. At that point, the promise of meaningful democratic choice becomes hollow.

We should not accept that. And we certainly should not normalize it.

Matthew Poplaw, Hampstead

A prescription for Santé Québec

Re: “Pediatrician on a mission to match kids with doctors” (The Gazette, April 8)

Dr. Matthew Donlan has managed to find a solution for matching kids with doctors in their area. Meanwhile, Geneviève Biron collects more than $650,000 a year as head of Santé Québec. What problems has she solved? Or has she in fact created more?

Where can I get a job like hers?

Andrea Fieldman, Westmount

The rule of law and charter rights

Re: “Notwithstanding clause a democratic safeguard” (Opinion, March 27) and “Notwithstanding clause requires guardrails” (Opinion, April 8)

Former federal minister and Montreal mayor Denis Coderre contends the notwithstanding clause in our Charter of Rights and Freedoms is not a flaw but a “democratic safeguard” protecting the role of elected officials.

From what? From themselves perhaps, which is where the protection is required, as well for the public — from ill advised arbitrary enactments like Bill 21.

Even democratic legislatures — especially majorities — can act arbitrarily. A Charter Section 1 analysis for all enactments infringing rights — as in Ford v. Quebec, which in 1988 struck down parts of Bill 101 — would help provide that protection.

Clifford Lincoln, from the other side of the spectrum, writes that Canada’s notwithstanding clause requires guardrails, and that it is reasonable to expect the Supreme Court in its judgment on Bill 21 to set “clear guidelines.”

No doubt this is desired by many — but consistent with the court’s role as an independent adjudicator, the guidelines must be found in the existing law.

There is no better place to start than by following Section 1 of the charter, the actual decision in Ford v. Quebec, and the rule of law.

Darrell Roberts, Comox, B.C.

Bill 20 would gut mixed-income housing co-ops

Re: “Province has it wrong on co-op housing: advocates” (The Gazette, March 14)

Quebec appears set to legislate the soul out of its housing co-ops. The housing crisis is real, but the government’s solution might destroy one of the few things actually working.

I spent nine years as an active member of Coopérative Milton-Parc, one of several housing co-ops that together form the Milton-Parc community, the largest non-profit urban preservation and community land trust project in Canada, and a model that has drawn interest from housing advocates around the world.

In October, I joined Coopérative Le Trapèze, a newly founded co-op in Montreal. Watching it take shape has reminded me why this model matters.

The members come from different backgrounds, different income levels and different walks of life. Many of them have put in up to 20 hours a week on top of their regular jobs to get this co-op off the ground, managing finances, maintaining the building and creating a community.

That diversity of people and skills is not incidental to how a co-op works. It is the whole point.

Bill 20 would impose income ceilings and financial penalties on members whose earnings rise above a threshold to be determined later by regulation. The government would hand a public body the power to decide who gets to join a co-op, based on income alone, with no consideration for the skills, commitment and capacity for involvement that make these communities function.

The Fédération de l’habitation coopérative du Québec is clear: Pushing out higher-earning members would weaken the movement without meaningfully helping those most in need of affordable housing.

The FHCQ is right. A co-op stripped of its mixed membership loses the human infrastructure that makes self-governance possible. What remains is just a building.

Mixed-income housing co-ops are not a loophole in the system. They are the system working as it should. Quebec has spent decades building this model. Bill 20 would start dismantling it in a single stroke.

Brendan King-Edwards, Montreal

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