Canada
Independent Liberal Members of Parliament (or of the Canadian Senate or a provincial legislative assembly) are typically former Liberal caucus members who were either expelled from the Liberal Party caucus or resigned the whip due to a political disagreement. More recent examples, include Don Johnston who sat as an Independent Liberal from January 18, 1988 until the adjournment of parliament due to his resignation from the Liberal caucus as a result of his support of the Canada–United States Free Trade Agreement which the party opposed, Jag Bhaduria who sat as an Independent Liberal from 1994 to 1996 following his expulsion from the Liberal caucus and Dennis Mills who briefly left the Liberal caucus in 1996 to sit as a "Independent Liberal" to protest the Liberal government's failure to abolish the Goods and Service Tax.
Independent Liberal candidates for parliament or the legislature have been those who generally subscribe to Liberal Party principles but either have not been selected as an official Liberal Party candidate or decline to seek the party's nomination due to a disagreement with the party on certain issues. Under the current Elections Act a candidate who is not affiliated with a political party can only describe themselves on the ballot as Independent or "No Affiliation" and cannot describe themselves in terms of an existing political party. Accordingly no candidate for the Canadian House of Commons has officially designated themselves an "Independent Liberal" since the 1968 federal election and no Independent Liberal candidate has been elected to the House of Commons since the 1957 federal election.
A number of Quebec Liberal MPs left the party and sat as Independent Liberals as a result of the Conscription Crisis of 1944 as they opposed the Liberal government's decision to implement conscription. The most prominent of these was Charles Gavan Power who resigned from Cabinet over the issue. Several ran for re-election in the 1945 federal election as Independent Liberals. William Lyon Mackenzie King's government was returned with only a minority of Liberal MPs in parliament but was able to govern as a majority government with the support of Independent Liberal MPs, most of whom rejoined the party in the course of the parliament.
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Famous quotes containing the word canada:
“I fear that I have not got much to say about Canada, not having seen much; what I got by going to Canada was a cold.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“In Canada an ordinary New England house would be mistaken for the château, and while every village here contains at least several gentlemen or “squires,” there is but one to a seigniory.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“Though the words Canada East on the map stretch over many rivers and lakes and unexplored wildernesses, the actual Canada, which might be the colored portion of the map, is but a little clearing on the banks of the river, which one of those syllables would more than cover.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)