Justin Trudeau legacy, Carney blocks senators from Liberal caucus
Mark Carney will not allow senators to return to the Liberal caucus, a senior government official said Thursday, keeping justin trudeau’s 2014 break with the Senate intact. The decision leaves the upper chamber outside the caucus structure Carney inherited and preserves the arrangement Trudeau created after expelling Liberal senators from party ranks.
Carney has not appointed any senators since he formed government last spring, but there are still nine vacancies in the 105-member Senate and another six senators are planning to retire by the end of 2026. That combination has kept attention on how Carney would handle appointments and whether new appointees would be treated like Trudeau’s caucus-excluded senators or folded back into the party structure.
Trudeau’s Senate break
Justin Trudeau expelled Liberal senators from the party’s caucus in 2014 in response to the Senate expense scandal, then set up an arms-length advisory panel to recommend Senate appointments after taking office. Since that move, senators have formed separate recognized groups in the Senate, including the Independent Senators Group, the Canadian Senators Group, the Progressive Senate Group, unaffiliated senators, and five senators in the Government Representative’s Office in the Senate. The Conservative caucus remains represented in the Senate as well.
Carney said Wednesday that he would keep the Trudeau-era advisory board in place. The board, the Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments, now has five sitting members and 24 vacancies, and it is not accepting applications for Senate seats. That leaves Carney with the same appointment machinery Trudeau built, but without any new senators yet named to test how far Carney intends to carry the old model.
Carney’s appointment choices
A second government voice sharpened the answer on Thursday. Pierre-Alain Bujold, a Privy Council Office spokesperson, said Carney would not let senators back into the Liberal caucus, closing off the possibility that new Senate appointees could return to the party fold as part of Carney’s government. Audrey Champoux, Carney’s spokesperson, also sits inside that chain of communication as the prime minister manages the Senate file.
The friction point is practical, not symbolic. Carney is keeping Trudeau’s advisory structure but not reopening the caucus door that Trudeau shut in 2014, so the Senate remains organized around separate groups rather than a single Liberal bloc. Rodger Cuzner, a senator and former Liberal MP, and Percy Downe are among the senators operating in that post-2014 landscape.
What Carney has left open
Carney has not specified whether any future appointees would sit in his caucus, but Thursday’s statement from the senior government official answered the narrower question that had driven speculation: the Liberal caucus will not absorb senators again. The next pressure point is appointments themselves, because nine seats are empty now and six more senators plan to retire by the end of 2026. Until Carney names new senators, Trudeau’s advisory model remains in place without a test case.
