CHANGING POLITICAL ALLEGIANCES

NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair was forced again Tuesday to revisit talks he had with the Conservatives in 2007 about coming on board as an adviser to the government on environmental issues. Here are some other prominent politicians who switched their colours f

BOB RAE

Pierre Trudeau also prompted Rae to get involved in politics, where he got his first taste of the life volunteering for the Liberals.

After returning from studying in England, he joined the New Democrats, eventually being elected as an NDP MP before leaving Ottawa to lead the provincial NDP and becoming premier of Ontario.

In 1998, he resigned from the NDP but didn’t sever political ties with them until 2002.

That year, he argued in an essay published by the National Post that he no longer supported the party’s approach to the Middle East and its opposition to the World Trade Organization.

“This is not a vision of social democracy worthy of support,” he wrote at the time.

In 2006, he declared his allegiance to the Liberals, running for its leadership but losing.

He became a Liberal MP in 2008 and the party’s interim leader following the 2011 election.