‘Real divide’ — Almost equal number of senators skip 40 per cent or more votes than barely ever miss one

19 senators missed 40 per cent or more votes, while 24 showed up for 90 per cent or more, a new analysis has found.

Nineteen senators currently in office missed 40 per cent or more votes since the start of the 45th Parliament, a new analysis has found.

The study also determined that 24 senators participated in 90 per cent or more votes, including six who never missed one.

Conservative Sen. Dawn Anderson had the worst attendance record of any active senator, participating in only four of the 36 standing votes since May 2025.

Four now retired senators had better voting records than Anderson.

Anderson’s office said the senator missed the votes because of public appearances or other official business across the Northwest Territories, which she represents in the Senate.

Travelling across the vast territory and to and from Ottawa also contributed to her missing votes, her office said.

“Had I instead chosen to remain in Ottawa primarily to improve an attendance statistic, I would have spent less time in northern communities, heard fewer voices, built fewer partnerships, and brought less firsthand knowledge to Parliament,” Anderson said in a statement.

“Parliament cannot make informed decisions about the North without understanding the people who live there… As the sole Senator representing the NWT, my responsibility is to ensure that Parliament’s understanding of the North is informed by the people who call it home.”

Canada’s three territories only have one senator each.

Non-affiliated Sen. Patrick Brazeau posted the next worst attendance record, taking part in six votes, a participation rate of 16.7 per cent.

In a statement to iPolitics, Brazeau blamed his poor health for missing votes. The senator fainted in the chamber roughly a year ago, and said he was “slowly beginning to get better one day at a time.”

Rounding out the top five are the Progressive Senator Group’s Wanda Thomas Bernard (seven out of 36), Conservative Rose-May Poirier (nine out of 36) and the Independent Senate Group’s Rosa Galvez (11 out of 36).

Bernard was on leave for most of the past year, according to the official Senate attendance. Her office told iPolitics she was on “medical leave” during that time, and “she is very happy to be back to work now.”

Poirier’s office said the senator was unable to attend some sittings because of “ongoing medical challenges.”

Despite this, the office said Poirier “continues to make every effort to be in Ottawa to fulfill her Senate duties and remains committed to serving the people of Kent and New Brunswick.”

When reached by iPolitics, Galvez said she voted on a number of “major items” such as the Build Canada Homes Act and June appropriations bill, but was away on “public business” on other voting days.

On those days, she said she was serving as a “keynote speaker, expert witness, or panelist at national and international forums on climate change, sustainable finance, and the energy transition,” including the COP30, Conference of Parliamentarians of the Arctic Region, and the ParlAmericas Summit.

“These engagements are directly relevant to my duties on the Senate’s committees on energy and the environment and on national finance, and I receive a high volume of such invitations given my background as an environmental engineer, a profile rare in the Senate,” Galvez said in a statement.

“As I have said in the chamber: Canadians and future generations will not judge us on how quickly we adopted legislation, but on whether we brought the care, diligence, and foresight expected of us. The Senate’s greatest contribution is its rigour and its judgment, not its speed.”

The analysis was generated by looking at how each individual senator participated. Unlike the House, senators can abstain from a vote. For this analysis, senators abstaining — and not just failing to be present — are counted as having taking part in the vote.

At the other end, six senators participated in every vote, including the ISG’s Iris Petten, Suze Youance and Tony Loffreda; Sandra Pupatello of the Government Representative’s Office; and Conservatives Yonah Martin and Denise Batters.

READ MORE: Senate absentee rate on votes this Parliament nearly 25 per cent: analysis

Last week, 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. Considering the 10 vacancies in the 105-seat chamber, that worked out to an average of 24 per cent of senators that weren’t voting.

Lori Turnbull, a political science professor at Dalhousie University, told iPolitics at the time that the numbers suggest there’s a “real divide” amongst senators, as many of those in the Upper Chamber she’s spoken with rarely, if ever, miss a vote.

She suspected the same group of senators are regularly skipping votes, and doesn’t believe that “absenteeism is becoming normalized.”

“It strikes me that there’s a disconnect then because some of them wouldn’t miss a vote if it was the end of the world, and there’s such a seriousness in the Senate in terms of how they do their legislative work. And to think that some of them aren’t doing it, I would not think this is a whole institution problem,” she said.

Unlike the Senate, MPs not in the Chamber can vote electronically using an smartphone app.

Remote voting was introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic to respond to social distancing guidelines, but wasn’t eliminated when the public health restrictions ended.

In the last Parliament before the pandemic, the average total across 1,379 votes came in at 241 — out of a Commons made up of 338 MPs. That number bumped up to nearly 244 when included paired votes.

But there seems to be very little appetite to extend remote voting.

In a statement to iPolitics, Conservative Senate Leader Leo Housakos said the Upper Chamber shouldn’t revisit adopting remote voting and senators should “organize their outside commitments around the work of this institution.”

“This is not a part-time job or a side gig, despite what some members have publicly suggested,” he said.

“There are, of course, legitimate reasons for absences, such as illness or public business. But outside of those, if attending three days a week, in particular for votes, for 26 weeks a year (or even less) is considered too onerous because of other outside commitments, then perhaps this is not the right place for them.”

According to the numbers, Housakos has participated in over 97 per cent of votes this Parliament.

On remote voting, Sen. Flordeliz Osler, who heads up the Canadian Senators Group said there needs to be a “broader discussion among all Senate groups about whether such a tool is appropriate for the Senate and under what circumstances it should be used.”

“While technology can improve accessibility in certain situations, the Senate has traditionally placed significant value on in-person debate, deliberation, and collegial engagement,” she said.

“Any proposal would need to carefully balance those considerations.”

The statistics show that Osler participated in over 80 per cent of votes since May 2025.

Prime Minister Mark Carney last week made his first appointments to the Senate since he took office in March 2025.

He also announced he was modifying the existing criteria for Senate appointments by dropping the non-partisanship requirement and prioritizing candidates with “expertise in key Canadian strategic industries, regulatory frameworks, and emerging social and economic affairs.”

He said removing the non-partisanship rule recognizes the “valuable contributions made by Canadians who have chosen to serve in elected office or in other partisan roles, including knowledge of the governing and legislative processes, which will contribute to a stronger, more effective Senate.”

For the past decade, Senate appointments were typically based on the recommendations of what the government called an independent advisory board. Most of these appointees came from non-political backgrounds.

Previous experience in partisan politics wasn’t disqualifying, but the process was seen as break from the tradition of having prime ministers name party loyalists to the Senate.

This shift in approach to appointments comes as the Liberals have increasingly clashed with the Senate over the handling of key pieces of legislation.

As iPolitics first reported, government sources objected to the Senate’s unsuccessful push to delay changes to the rules regulating political parties — that were supported by the Liberals, Conservatives and New Democrats — and delays in passing legislation overhauling bail laws backed by the premiers and police chiefs.

Carney’s office said future appointments will be handled by a new advisory board that is set to be established in the coming days.

This board will use a “merit-based criteria” to identify candidates with “diverse experience and perspectives,” and make recommendations to Carney, the Prime Minister’s Office said in a statement.

Lowest participation rates for votes (excluding senators who have since retired)