The idea that Christy Clark is a federal Liberal still kind of breaks my brain. Seeing her pose smiling in a photo last weekend at the party’s convention with a one-time senior member of the BC NDP was also kind of weird. Is there just one party now? Is that it? Are we all Liberals now?

Christy Clark, when premier of BC, was in name a “BC Liberal.” But the BC Liberals had long been the de facto conservative party here. Don’t be fooled by the “Liberal” moniker: the BC Liberals under Gorden Campbell were without question federal Tories and certainly right-wing in ideology and action.

By the same token, the BC NDP has also had its swings from quite-left to not-so-left to, under David Eby, I would say almost teetering on Mark Carney-ish centre-right. So labels have limits. Party affiliation only means something when it has practical application.

Say, for instance, party affiliation that makes you part of a majority government that can, in theory, stay in power until the October 2029 election mandated by federal Canadian law. That’s if all members of the Liberal Party vote with their party, if party discipline is even still a thing.

And, crucially, if no one from Carney’s merry band of deputies decides to bolt. I say that’s a big possibility, if not a certainty. I don’t mean resign their seat to do something else—think Nate Erskine-Smith hopping over to Ontario provincial politics, leaving a safe seat for another Liberal candidate—I mean hop over to any of the available opposition benches or, and I would bet money on this, sit as an independent.

There are immense downsides to being an independent MP or a member of a party without official status. You rarely, if ever, get to ask questions in Question Period. You have limited budgets which means a skeleton staff, if any. No broad and deep research and communication teams; those MPs are largely on their own.

But they can also speak and vote their conscience. Sometimes that’s vital for a person elected to hold public office, someone who stood out of an adherence to a certain set of ideals. If those ideals are under threat, staying a backbencher in a caucus that’s threatening them won’t hold.

Let’s talk BC, this past week, as an example. Currently Eby’s NDP has a one-seat majority. Eby proposed pausing DRIPA legislation and making the vote on the pause a matter of confidence. That was knowing that at least one member of his caucus, likely many more, were deeply opposed to the pause in principle.

Eby had to abandon the matter as a confidence vote, as he would have lost and been forced to call an election. So that is a clear and recent example, from a Canadian legislature not that different from the one in Ottawa, that individual members of the governing party will, on occasion, be prepared to let the government fall on a matter of—let’s use Carney’s favourite word—values.

The extra-interesting lesson coming from BC actually doesn’t come from the government side of the house. It comes from the opposition benches. There are 93 total seats. 47 BC NDP, 38 BC Conservative, 2 BC Green, and 6 Independent.

Count ’em—6 Independent. Those folks are, from my recollection, all ex-BC Conservatives who fled that party’s ruckus not long after the party label was resurrected. A refresher from my memory: The BC Liberals rebranded as BC United, then a faction broke off from BC United and revived the long-defunct BC Conservatives, then BC United basically collapsed and the BC Conservatives scooped up all those folks. It was evidently an uneasy coalition because 6 of those folks now sit as Independents.

(Side note: It is possible my memory fails me here, and one member was elected as an Independent. But certainly not 6.)

Those independent MLAs are a notorious lot, at least a couple of them are. Dallas Brodie was actually kicked out of the Conservative caucus. For a time she and a fellow independent had their own political party. It’s a democracy, right? Even the right-wingers too right-wing for even the BC Conservative party have to go somewhere, right? Well… let’s leave that one to the side for now.

But there are also respected Independent MLAs like Elenore Sturko, who was a bit of a star candidate when she was first elected for the BC United in 2022. She was also removed from the BC Conservative caucus and claimed she wasn’t able to express her socially liberal beliefs in the party.

Sturko still gets local press all the time, even as an Independent MLA. It could be because, with a one-seat majority, one Independent could make a real difference. It was even rumoured that Eby was considering canvassing the Independents to ask if they might vote with the government on the DRIPA matter if his own caucus wasn’t on board.

The fact that Sturko can still have influence and attention makes the point that Independent members can do the job they want to do, even without research and communication budgets. It just has to be the right member.

With Mark Carney cobbling together a broad coalition, he’s inevitably going to alienate folks on the edges. It’s just a matter of time. I’ve gotten close enough to Mark Carney to know he has a certain magic, but magic fades, and Carney will tire. I think he’s already tired. He’s certainly awesome, or awesome-ish, but he’s tiring and it won’t take much to bump an already-alienated MP out of the fold, even inadvertently.

The right MP can do fine without a big budget, because some members are just fine on their own. In my very brief time working for elected folks in BC, I worked for one person who didn’t need me at all. The other seemed completely reliant on me to give them ideas or cues about what to say.

Most MPs I imagine fall in the middle of those two extremes, but the extremes do exist, and the MP who can do it on their own, with their own policy wonk brain, their own network of media contacts, the personality that makes them good for tv, could easily be a successful Independent.

Mark Carney couldn’t count on them, not on issues that matter, and Carney would at least in theory be forced to negotiate with them. As, for a time, it seemed Carney was forced to negotiate with Elizabeth May to get her approval for the budget.

I’m sure they are still recruiting floor-crossers, and that’s why; because 174 out of 343 is still too close for comfort.

What I still don’t really understand is how they are getting these floor crossers to begin with. I can understand not wanting to sit in a caucus where you have to speak with a united voice, often sacrificing your own opinions for the sake of the party’s, and still not getting any of your agenda passed because you’re not in government. But why become a Liberal? What were these people promised?

They must have been promised something, and if party identification is as fluid these days as it seems to be, Carney might find himself having to make more promises than usual not to get people to come over, but to stop people from leaving. MPs are people, after all, and there’s got to come a point when looking into Mark’s beautiful blue eyes won’t be enough to swallow the entirety of his agenda.