All Floor Crossings

Curtis, a BC Conservative MLA, crossed to Social Credit as part of the consolidation of the free-enterprise coalition against the Barrett NDP government.

Roch La Salle, a Progressive Conservative MP from Joliette in Quebec, briefly sat as an Independent in the early 1970s during a dispute with PC leader Robert Stanfield. La Salle…

Bud Olson

1967Notable

Social Credit → LiberalMPAlberta

5/5

Olson, MP for Medicine Hat, left the declining Social Credit Party to join the Liberals under Pierre Trudeau, who offered him a cabinet position.

René Lévesque, the charismatic former journalist and Quebec Liberal cabinet minister, had become increasingly convinced that Quebec needed sovereignty to protect its language, c…

Rolston, a BC Progressive Conservative MLA, crossed the floor to join W.A.C. Bennett's new Social Credit government.

Greenlay, a Manitoba PC MLA, crossed the floor to join the Liberal-Progressive government of Douglas Campbell, who was a childhood friend. He was immediately appointed Provincia…

Thomas Alexander Crerar

1930Notable

Progressive / United Farmers → LiberalMPManitoba

5/5

Thomas Alexander Crerar, the founder and first leader of the Progressive Party of Canada, had resigned the party leadership in 1922 and later sat as a United Farmers of Manitoba…

The Progressive Party of Canada, which had won 65 seats in the 1921 election to become the second-largest party in Parliament, gradually disintegrated during the 1920s as Macken…

Frank Broadstreet Carvell

1917Notable

Liberal → Liberal-UnionistMPNew Brunswick

4/5

Like Fielding, Carvell supported conscription during WWI and left the Liberals to join the Union Government.

Hugh Guthrie

1917Notable

Liberal → UnionistMPOntario

4/5

Another Liberal who supported conscription during WWI and crossed the floor.

William Stevens Fielding

1917Notable

Liberal → Liberal-UnionistMPNova Scotia

2/5

During World War I, the government wanted to force men to fight overseas (conscription). Fielding, a senior Liberal, supported conscription even though his party leader Wilfrid …

The Conscription Crisis of 1917 shattered the Liberal Party along linguistic and regional lines. When Prime Minister Robert Borden introduced the Military Service Act to impose …

Joseph-Israël Tarte

1893Notable

Conservative → LiberalMPQuebec

4/5

Joseph-Israël Tarte, a Quebec Conservative journalist and politician, had been one of the party's most effective organizers in Quebec. However, he became disillusioned with the …

Five Quebec Liberal MLAs — Alexandre Chauveau, Edmund James Flynn, Louis Napoléon Fortin, Étienne-Théodore Pâquet, and Ernest Racicot — crossed the floor to the Conservatives in…

Alfred Gilpin Jones

1872Notable

Independent → LiberalMPNova Scotia

4/5

Alfred Gilpin Jones, elected as an Anti-Confederate in 1867 and then sitting as an Independent, gradually aligned with the Liberal Party by 1872 as the anti-Confederation moveme…

Joseph Howe

1869Notable

Anti-Confederate → Liberal-ConservativeMPNova Scotia

5/5

Howe led the fight against Nova Scotia joining Canada. When that fight was lost, he negotiated better financial terms for Nova Scotia, then joined the government.

Richard John Cartwright

1869Notable

Liberal-Conservative → LiberalMPOntario

5/5

Cartwright believed he deserved to be Finance Minister. When Prime Minister Macdonald gave the job to someone else, Cartwright left the party in anger.

Wetmore, an Anti-Confederate in the New Brunswick colonial legislature, switched sides and supported Confederation after the pro-Confederation forces prevailed.