Private members’ bills are traditionally free votes and are introduced into the House by individual backbench MPs from any party, rather than by the government. However, even in this ostensibly independent area, the MPs reported heavy party intervention.
One Bloc MP said his party still pressured MPs when facing a free vote. “There are no real free votes. The political parties will say that it’s a free vote to seem democratic, but if the leader has an opinion on it, he’s going to put pressure on the membership so that you think like him,” he said.
A New Democrat MP expressed frustration that the governing parties rarely adhered to free votes once in power. “All these guys who said they were for free votes end up voting against private member’s business because their government does not want it to happen,” he said.
MPs also expressed anxiety over potential reprisals from their peers during free votes. As one MP described it, “There are consequences for however you vote. There are free votes where you know that, while you’re not going to get kicked out of the party, your name’s now on somebody’s hit list, or their ‘do not promote’ list.”
Other MPs complained that political parties were increasingly limiting the abilities of MPs to introduce their own private member’s bill, instead using them to test a potential piece of legislation. One MP, appointed as critic by her party, claimed that a great deal of the legislation she dealt with was, in fact, “private members’ bills disguised as government feelers.”