It's Not Easy Being an MP

Brad Trost's rift with the Tories over funding for a pro-choice group raises deep questions about party discipline.

Macleans' Aaron Wherry takes a minute to parse just what Tory MP Brad Trost's breaking of party ranks over Planned Parenthood funding means:

"An MP who expresses disagreement with his party instantly makes himself more relevant. An individual who stakes out a position and stays with it after he is elected however it contradicts official policy makes himself more relevant. A system of 308 mavericks going rogue on every other issue would cease to function as a parliamentary system. But a culture that treats the ability to enforce discipline as the highest test of leadership only perpetuates the idea of the MP as a cue-card reader. If we’d rather something better than that – if we would like our MPs to behave publicly as something other than mouthpieces –than we should find a way to treat dissension as something other than a sign of weakness.

Setting aside, for the moment, whatever your feelings about Mr. Trost’s position on this particular issue, setting aside the politics of Mr. Trost’s situation, his 'democratic voice' is probably to be applauded and encouraged."