In a majority government situation (as is the current case) it can have the affect that if the Prime Minister wants the legislation passed then all party members will be instructed to vote for it and it will pass. An MP disobeying the party is a controversial event. In the USA we saw support for SOPA/PIPA drain away as individual members of the house/senate abandoned support, but I feel that that situation is less likely to happen in Canada.
Most of the votes have the Conservative majority solidly on one side and everyone else on the other. It's nearly impossible to stop or alter legislation that Mr. Harper wants passed.
The concept of a MP is almost pointless because they are usually not representing their constituents. For controversial issues like C-11, ACTA, etc all party members are usually forced to vote a certain way when these issues are the ones were disent is actually the best possible thing for a truly democratic society.
It would be interesting to see what would happen if you didn't identify the party the candidate was associated with on the ballet and no one at the polling station was allowed to provide this information. Would people vote less? Would they actually learn about the candidates more?