Chuck Cadman

Chuck Cadman, the Conservative MP for Surrey North and a well-known victims' rights advocate whose teenage son Jesse had been murdered in 1992, lost the Conservative Party nomination for his riding ahead of the 2004 election. The party's local riding association chose another candidate, effectively ending Cadman's career within the party. Rather than accept the decision, Cadman ran as an Independent. His personal story — a father who entered politics after his son's murder to fight for tougher criminal sentences — gave him an enormous personal following that transcended party loyalties.

Cadman won as an Independent in 2004, defeating the official Conservative candidate. In May 2005, he cast one of the most dramatic votes in Canadian parliamentary history: battling terminal cancer and visibly frail, he voted against a Conservative non-confidence motion, keeping Paul Martin's minority Liberal government alive by a single vote (153-152). Cadman died of melanoma in July 2005. Allegations later surfaced that Conservative operatives had offered him a $1-million life insurance policy to vote with them — charges that led to an RCMP investigation. His story remains one of the most poignant in Canadian parliamentary history.