Peter Stoffer was a fresh-faced rookie MP back in 1999, still unschooled in Ottawa's unique brand of gamesmanship when he encountered his first floor-crossing.

"Bill Matthews, who's a Member of Parliament in Newfoundland, was a Progressive Conservative," the affable Nova Scotia New Democrat recalls. "I'll never forget: He was on our Fisheries committee, and he ... lambasted the Liberals for their fisheries policy. He was quite a strong critic of them. And then, within the span of a day or two, there he is in the Charles Lynch Room with (then-Cabinet minister) George Baker, announcing to the world that he's now a Liberal.

"So I went to (veteran NDP MP) Bill Blaikie, and I said 'what's goin' on?' And he said, 'You mean crossing the floor? That can be done in a heartbeat - anyone can do it, as long as the leader of the other party wants you.'"

And so began Stoffer's quest to change the rules of the game - an effort that, in a lucky bit of timeliness, will come to a head just a few months after Belinda Stronach committed the most controversial floor-crossing in modern Canadian history.

Six years after he brought it forward, Stoffer's private member's bill to prevent MPs from arbitrarily changing parties between elections is finally set to come before the House this fall. If passed, it would force Members who wanted to switch sides to resign their seats and seek voters' approval in a by-election.

For some, the legislation wouldn't go far enough. Conservative MP Joe Preston has brought forward a private member's bill of his own that would also prevent those elected under a party banner from sitting as independents without going to the polls - a provision Stoffer has shied away from, rightly pointing out it would hand party leaders too much of a stick by allowing them to threaten not only to kick dissenting MPs out of caucus, but to literally take their seats away from them.

Mostly, though, it's traditionalists whose feathers are ruffled by Stoffer's proposal. Changing sides has long been an accepted part of our Parliament's functions, and of the British parliament it's modeled on. As Stoffer acknowledges, having apparently brushed up on floor-crossing's history since it first caught him off guard, even Winston Churchill partook.

That, though, was then. And occasionally, the system must be modernized to recognize that Canadian politics has ... well, not evolved exactly, but changed.

In the age of 10-second sound bytes, most Canadians place a far greater emphasis on party leaders than on local candidates. That's particularly true in urban and suburban ridings, where many voters couldn't pick their MP out of a two-person lineup - and it's reflected in the frequency with which promising local candidates are beaten by deadwood that happens to be running under the right party's banner.

Meanwhile, the last few years have seen a grotesque spasm of opportunists fleeing the opposition in favour of the government's greener pastures. Among many others was Joe Peschisolido, a former Liberal who snuck in as a Canadian Alliance MP in Richmond, B.C., in 2000, then waited mere months to switch back to his original party. And while fellow former Conservatives Scott Brison and Keith Martin at least made some credible claim to genuine discomfort with the newly merged right-wing party, there was no denying the nakedly self-serving nature of Stronach's plunge straight into the Liberal Cabinet this spring.

There will be more - we can be sure of it. The Liberals are still clinging to power, desperate for every vote they can get and willing to tell erstwhile opposition MPs what they want to hear. With a federal campaign coming soon, they'll be looking for any momentum they can get from Tories or New Democrats jumping ship - as will the Conservatives with any willing Liberals they can find. And with the next election likely to produce another minority parliament, there'll be just as many offers flying back and forth afterward.

Again and again, voters who marked their ballots in good faith will be slapped in the face - unless, that is, Stoffer's bill captures enough public attention to push Parliament into adopting it.

He knows it's a longshot. The Liberals will vote against it, the Tories have yet to commit, the Bloc Quebecois is "cool" to it and he still has to convince a few fellow New Democrats. And even if it gets through the Commons, the Liberal-dominated Senate could very well kill it.

But if nothing else, perhaps the debate will at least succeed in shaming would-be floor-crossers into thinking twice. Then again, if they don't have any qualms about violating the wishes of thousands of people who put them in office, it's doubtful a lone New Democrat will have much luck in stopping them.