About This Project

What is floor-crossing?

A floor crossing happens when an elected member of a legislature switches political parties without resigning their seat and seeking a fresh mandate from voters. In Canada, this has happened dozens of times since Confederation, from wartime coalition-building to backroom deals that swap a vote for a cabinet seat. Some crossings are principled. Most are not.

Why does this exist?

Floor crossings are some of the most dramatic — and least understood — moments in Canadian politics. Until now, no one had ever catalogued them all. This is the first bilingual, comprehensive database of every documented floor crossing at the federal and provincial level. We built it because the public deserves a clear, unvarnished record of who switched, why, and what they got for it.

The data

Every crossing is sourced from parliamentary records, Hansard transcripts, Elections Canada data, news archives, and academic research. We assign each crossing a category (what kind of move it was) and a benefit score (what the crosser got out of it). The full dataset is open and free to download.

Who built this

Crossing the Floor is an independent, open-source research project with no partisan affiliation. It is built for accuracy, bilingual accessibility, and public accountability.

Get in touch

Found an error? Know of a crossing we missed? We want to hear from you. Submit a correction through the contribution form, or open an issue on GitHub.

Open source

The code, data, and methodology are all publicly available under open licenses. Fork it, build on it, cite it. Attribution appreciated.