Ottawa is pouring and this newsletter writer has never appreciated a work-from-home day more than today. This is what happened today:

As Prime Minister Mark Carney outlines his plans to overhaul appointments to the Upper Chamber, a new analysis shows nearly 25 per cent of senators missed any given vote since the 2025 election.

iPolitics analyzed the results of all 36 standing votes held in the Senate since the start of the 45th Parliament last May, and found that, on average, 72 votes or abstentions were recorded.

There are 105 seats in the Senate, though 10 are currently vacant, according to the official Senate website. Senators must resign after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 75.

While those vacancies happened over the course of the past year, iPolitics used 95 seats as the benchmark for its entire analysis, and found that, on average, 24 per cent of senators weren’t voting.

Some of the most glaring examples of absenteeism came on crucial government bills. Only 60 senators participated in the third-reading vote for Bill C-9, the government’s contentious anti-hate bill.

Marco Vigliotti has more.

The tech behemoth behind Facebook and Instagram says it plans to make Alberta home to its first artificial intelligence data centre in Canada and its largest outside the United States.

Meta announced Wednesday that the $13-billion-plus project is to be built in Sturgeon County, in the Industrial Heartland region north of Edmonton.

The one-gigawatt, nearly 270,000-square-metre data centre would be powered by a natural gas-fired plant to be built by a consortium that includes Calgary-based Pembina Pipeline Ltd.

It takes about 1.4 gigawatts to power Edmonton, and the proposed data centre campus could fit 33 Canadian Football League fields.

“We believe that the success of a data centre is only possible when the community itself succeeds along with it. More than that, we want Sturgeon County and Alberta to thrive,” Gary Demasi, vice-president of data centre strategy and development at Meta, told a news conference in Calgary.

“We look forward to putting down roots in this community and building a strong and positive partnership for many years to come.”

The Canadian Press got this one. 

Taiwan’s ambassador is warning that efforts to foster closer economic cooperation with China increase the threat of coercion, after Beijing imposed a 73.5 per cent tariff on Canadian pea starch.

The levy came after the Liberal government tabled legislation combatting forced labour in supply chains, which could end up targeting Chinese imports.

The UN Human Rights Office warned that China’s “poverty alleviation through labour transfer” program effectively coerces the Uyghurs in Xinjiang and other minorities into forced labor.

Harry Tseng, Taiwan’s ambassador to Canada, said in a statement to iPolitics that China has “repeatedly weaponized trade to pressure its partners.”

“From Australian wine to Taiwanese agricultural products, the lesson is clear: the greater the dependence on China, the greater the risk of coercion,” he said.

Read more from Vigliotti. 

In Other Headlines

Internationally

A Palestinian driver bringing food aid from the World Central Kitchen (WCK) into Gaza has been killed by an Israeli soldier “in a field execution”, according to witnesses and the local truckers’ association, which said it may suspend operations in protest.

Ahmad Esleem was shot in the head on Wednesday when an aid convoy stopped because of a breakdown to one truck soon after entering Gaza, according to three accounts. Israeli soldiers ordered the drivers to dismount and one of them shot Esleem in the head when his hands were raised.

Another driver in the four-truck convoy, Diaa Mansour, said the shooting happened on the Philadelphi corridor, a military road on the southern edge of the Gaza strip.

“After the truck broke down, we waited for authorisation to get out and inspect it, because every movement we make has to be coordinated in advance,” he said. “While we were waiting, an Israeli military vehicle arrived. The soldiers ordered Ahmad and me to get out of our trucks, and then they ordered another driver, Alaa Shaat, to get out as well. The driver at the front of the convoy, Fares Muheisen, remained inside his truck and didn’t get out.

The Guardian has more. 

The Trump administration is proposing changes to what it calls “unnecessary and unworkable” Biden-era environmental rules designed to cut pollution from heavy-duty vehicles, including buses and large trucks.

The proposal — part of a series of deregulatory actions by the Trump administration that have rolled back emissions standards for new vehicles — includes changes that are welcomed by trucking organizations and denounced by environmental groups.

Specifically, the proposal from the Environmental Protection Agency would scale back and postpone two provisions designed to make sure emissions-reducing technology keeps working while a vehicle is in use; one related to warranties, and another related to the useful life of emissions technology.

Additionally, the current set of rules requires truck engines to automatically operate at reduced power if their emissions reduction systems aren’t working, which truckers and other heavy-duty vehicle operators have called disruptive. The EPA proposes getting rid of that requirement altogether and replacing it with an alert to drivers.

Read more from NPR. 

In Other International Headlines

The Kicker

Yesterday, this newsletter writer joked that a. photogenic goose might end up leading the newsletter. Judging by some of the feedback, a few readers were genuinely disappointed when no goose appeared.

To make amends, here’s not one, but a collage of furry coworkers keeping the iPolitics team company while they work from home.