E-7582: Petition to the House of Commons — Canadian Petition Tracker
Canonical URL: https://petitiontracker.ca/petition/e-7582
Track petition E-7582 — "Petition to the House of Commons" sponsored by Anna Roberts. 7 signatures and counting. See signature growth trends and provincial breakdown on PetitionTracker.ca.
Petition Text
Petition to the House of Commons
Whereas:
• Under the current Westminster parliamentary system, Members of Parliament are legally permitted to cross the floor and switch political parties without immediate democratic consequences;
• Modern voters increasingly vote based on national party platforms and leadership, meaning floor-crossing can disenfranchise voters who supported a specific party banner; and
• Existing proposals to completely ban floor-crossing fail to respect instances where an MP retains a strong personal, grassroots mandate from their community.
We, the undersigned, citizens and residents of Canada, call upon the House of Commons to amend the Canada Elections Act and the Parliament of Canada Act to implement a Data-Driven Floor-Crossing Accountability Framework utilizing the following three mechanics:
1. A Dual-Option Voting Ballot: Introduce a local ballot allowing voters to explicitly check a box for the individual candidate, the political party, or both. Dual-checked ballots will count fully toward winning the seat but will be mathematically neutralized as a "wash" regarding party-versus-individual ratios;
2. Sealed Election Data Protection: Require Elections Canada to securely seal the ratio of "Party-Only" versus "Person-Only" votes on election night, keeping the metrics confidential to protect the day-to-day equality and stability of all sitting MPs; and
3. An Automatic By-Election Trigger: Require that if an MP requests to cross the floor to join a rival party, the data must be unsealed. If the "Party-Only" vote share outnumbers the "Person-Only" vote share, the MP's seat is declared vacant, and an immediate by-election is triggered where the defector is legally permitted to run under their new banner, allowing local citizens to make the ultimate democratic decision.