One more reason to be for floor crossing...

In the last few years, the Liberals have picked up Scott Brison, Keith Martin, Belinda Stronach, and now Garth Turner. They've lost Pat O'Brien, David Kilgour, David Emerson and Wajid Khan.

On balance, I have to say the Liberals came out on top. The only real loss out of that bunch was Emerson, but he's toast in the next election, anyway. O'Brien, Kilgour and Khan didn't leave soon enough, as far as I'm concerned.

As for Turner himself, well, we'll see how that goes. Hopefully his experience with the Conservatives has shown him that the secrecy of caucus is sacrosanct, and there will thus never be any (legitimate) reason to boot him from caucus. It's a huge loss for the Green Party, obviously, and to be honest I was hoping that he would sit as a Green, mostly because I want Elizabeth May to be included in the leaders' debates.

One thing I must say is that it was a stroke of genius for Turner to promise to contest a by-election if Harper called by-elections for Khan, Fortier and Emerson. That won't completely eliminate his inevitable characterization by Conservatives as a hypocrite, but it should blunt their words a great deal, as Turner has made it clear that he would be happy to live up to his principles, as long as they were applied consistently. (It's a convenient coincidence that by-elections for Mississauga--Streetsville, Vancouver--Kingsway, Halton and wherever Fortier were to run, would probably result in Liberal victories.)

Anyway, I join many others in welcoming Garth to the light side of the Force. I did leave a comment on his blog to the effect of, "You should join the Greens," but this works too.