Kennedy and is defeated. 2000s April 2000: André Harvey, MP, left Progressive Conservatives to sit as an independent. September 12, 2000: David Price, MP, and Diane St-Jacques, MP, left the Progressive Conservatives to join Liberals; André Harvey, former PC MP but independent since April, also joined the Liberals at the same announcement. St-Jacques and Price reportedly told PC leader Joe Clark months earlier that they would leave the party. September 27, 2000: Rick Laliberte, NDP MP, sits as a Liberal and later switched to independent for the 2004 election. 2001: Jean-Guy Carignan, Liberal MP, changes to Independent-Liberal, to back to Liberal, then finally to sit as independent. 2001: Jim Melenchuk and Ron Osika leave the Liberal Party of Saskatchewan when the party leaves the coalition with NDP. Both decide to continue to support the government and stay in cabinet. In the 2003 election both run for the New Democratic Party of Saskatchewan and are defeated. 2001: MPs Art Hanger, Chuck Strahl, Gary Lunn, Jim Pankiw, Val Meredith, Grant McNally, Jay Hill, Jim Gouk, Monte Solberg, Andy Burton, Brian Fitzpatrick, Deborah Grey, and Inky Mark were either expelled from or voluntarily left the Canadian Alliance caucus after publicly criticizing party leader Stockwell Day, and sat as an "Independent Alliance Caucus". Hanger, Gouk, Solberg, Fitzpatrick and Burton returned to the Alliance at the end of the summer; the remaining MPs continued to sit as the Democratic Representative Caucus. All but Mark and Pankiw eventually rejoined the Alliance by 2002. 2002: Inky Mark, Democratic Representative Caucus MP, changes to independent, then later to the Progressive Conservatives. 2002: Jim Pankiw, Democratic Representative Caucus was denied permission to rejoin the Canadian Alliance and sat the remainder of his term as an independent MP. May 2002L Dennis Fentie, MLA for the Yukon New Democratic Party, leaves the party to join the conservative Yukon Party. 2002: Joe Peschisolido, changes from Canadian Alliance MP to Liberal. 2002: Ghislain Lebel, changes from Bloc Québécois MP to independent. 2003: Pierre Brien, changes from Bloc Québécois MP to independent. December 11, 2003: Scott Brison, Progressive Conservative MP, joins Liberals on the former's merger into the Conservative Party. Also Robert Lanctôt, Bloc Québécois MP, joins Liberal. February 17, 2004: John Bryden, Liberal MP, sits as an independent. February 25, 2004: John Bryden, independent MP, sits with the new Conservative Party. He subsequently lost the Conservative nomination in his riding held shortly after