It was no surprise that NDP-turned-Independent MP Bruce Hyer joined the Green Party, if you’d paid the least amount of attention to the House of Commons over the past year or so. Hyer did flirt with the Liberals to a small extent, expressing support to Joyce Murray’s leadership campaign because of her stance on things like proportional representation, but really, Hyer and Elizabeth May have become quite the pair in the far corner of the Commons.

What was also not a real surprise was the outrage that the NDP would show over the move, and what should not have been a surprise was the stunning degree of civic ignorance demonstrated by Charlie Angus in his press release denouncing Hyer’s move.

For the sake of posterity, here is Angus’ release in full:

Today’s self-centred decision by Bruce Hyer disrespects the voters of Thunder Bay-Superior North who sent him to Ottawa and serves to fuel the cynicism that has driven voters away from Canadian politics.

Mr. Hyer was elected on a platform that specifically promised to end floor-crossing. He made that promise to his constituents and today he broke his word.

Mr. Hyer now represents a party that received only 3% of the votes in this riding during the last election – betraying the 97% of the people of this riding who opposed the Green Party in 2011 – and the nearly 50% who voted NDP.

Regardless of the rationalisations and excuses he is offering up today, Mr. Hyer clearly stated last April that he left the NDP caucus because he did not receive an appointment to the Shadow Cabinet.

Mr. Hyer has broken faith with the voters. We are calling on him to do the right thing, the honourable thing, and immediately resign his seat and give the voters of Thunder Bay-Superior North a real choice in a by-election.

That’s how democracy works.

Canada – and the people of Thunder Bay – deserve better.

To parse this a little, according to Angus, the only thing in the NDP platform was a promise to end floor-crossing. Hyer is also apparently bound to a platform that he was apparently voted in on, even though he was pushed out of the party for – wait for it – standing up for the wishes of his constituents even though it went against his party’s policy dictates. Angus also makes it sound like all of those voters voted against the Green Party. Um, okay. By his logic, if nearly 50 percent of the riding voted for the NPD, then more than 50 percent voted against them too, so Hyer sitting as an NDP MP when he was elected must also be illegitimate, even though they won the plurality of the vote.

And then Angus says that apparently democracy means resigning his seat and running in a by-election. In doing so, of course, Angus ironically is the one who exposes himself as being the person who actually doesn’t understand how democracy works in this country.

You see, we live in a parliamentary democracy where voters elect MPs as individuals to fill seats in the House of Commons. We don’t vote for parties, who then assign MPs to fill their allocation of seats. The beauty of this system is that it gives MPs the freedom of individual choice. Because they were elected as an individual, they are empowered to act as they see fit on behalf of their constituents. And sometimes, that means changing their party allegiance – especially if it’s on a point of principle, as Hyer did when he was punished by the party leadership for voting to abolish the long-gun registry as his riding demanded of him.

Oh, but people cry – people really only vote for the party! Or the leader! And it may be true that this is what some voters base their choices on. It doesn’t make it illegitimate, but it also doesn’t change the fact that they are voting for their local candidate who they feel will reflect that choice. If that candidate should disappoint them, then they’re perfectly free to not vote for that person next time around. Similarly, if they feel that the incumbent isn’t representing their party well, they are free to join the local riding association and challenge his or her nomination in advance of the next election, so that it’s someone else on the ballot. Those are the accountability mechanisms that are inherent within our system of government, and they’ve worked pretty well for nearly two centuries.

Trying to claim, as Angus does, that an MP who crosses the floor is illegitimate or anti-democratic is facile nonsense because our system is predicated on the fact that MPs are elected as individuals, even if it happens to be under a party banner. It doesn’t matter how hard you protest that it’s otherwise – the system is what it is, no matter what reasons you had in mind when you marked your ballot. Insisting otherwise won’t change that reality. Pretending that democracy means something that you made up on the spot also doesn’t change the fact that Canada is a Westminster parliamentary democracy that operates on the principle of Responsible Government.

Oh, and for Charlie Angus to say that floor crossing causes the cynicism that turns people off of politics while slagging off Hyer and calling him self-centred is also done with no small amount of irony. And perhaps Angus should take a remedial class on civic literacy before he starts making any more grand pronouncements about how democracy in Canada apparently works.