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Prime Minister Mark Carney’s first Senate appointments include one of his most senior advisers, a move that could send shockwaves through the Red Chamber.
Tom Pitfield, who served on Carney’s 2025 campaign team and then became a principal secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office, has been named to the upper house.
The government will also remove the “nonpartisan criterion” that previously defined the appointments process under Justin Trudeau.
While reviving partisan appointments, a spokesperson for Carney told CBC News that Pitfield will not sit as a member of the national Liberal caucus alongside MPs, leaving him at least nominally Independent. There are no plans to revive a Liberal caucus in the Senate, the spokesperson said, something that was disbanded amid Trudeau’s push for a wholly independent upper house.
In a highly unusual move, Carney will also name a sitting Conservative MP, Richard Martel, to the Senate, creating a vacancy in a competitive Quebec riding.
Martel, a past hockey coach who was first elected in 2018, narrowly won Chicoutimi-Le Fjord for the Conservatives in the last general election, with the Bloc Québécois and Liberal candidates a close second and third in a riding considered part of the separatist heartland.
Despite his Conservative past, the PMO confirmed Martel will sit as an Independent, possibly robbing the small Conservative Senate caucus of a potential recruit.
The party’s leader in the Senate, Leo Housakos, said in a statement that he was “pleased to welcome my friend and longtime caucus colleague” to the chamber.
While Martel is going in to the Senate without an affiliation, Housakos said there is “nothing standing in the way of Mr. Martel — or anyone else — joining our caucus, where he would be welcomed with open arms.”
A Conservative Party spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Martel, whose resignation from the Commons is effective immediately, is the fifth Conservative to leave his party’s caucus.
Industry Minister Mélanie Joly, a key Quebec voice around the cabinet table, told reporters she spoke to Martel before Carney’s announcement.
“At a time where we need to work together, all parties combined, on national unity, it will be a pleasure for me to work with Mr. Martel,” Joly told reporters at an unrelated announcement.
Prime Minister Mark Carney has appointed Tom Pitfield, who served on Carney’s 2025 campaign team and then became a principal secretary in the Prime Minister’s Office, to the Senate, as well as Conservative MP Richard Martel.
While it is exceedingly rare, a prime minister appointing a sitting Opposition MP to the upper chamber is not without precedent. A number of MPs have been appointed to the Senate by a prime minister of a different political stripe since Confederation, but it doesn’t appear to have happened since Pierre Trudeau nominated a handful of Progressive Conservatives in the late 1970s.
First Senate picks for Carney
Pitfield, a childhood friend and longtime digital campaign strategist for Trudeau, is a major figure in the modern Liberal movement.
His wife, Anna Gainey, is a Liberal MP from Quebec and the secretary of state for children and youth. His father, Michael Pitfield, was a former top civil servant who himself served in the Senate for nearly 30 years.
New Brunswick cancer researcher Dr. Rodney Ouellette, a friend of Canada-U.S. Trade Minister Dominic LeBlanc, and Manitoba chartered professional accountant Geeta Tucker were also named to the Senate.
The Pitfield pick signals Carney is willing to make a partisan appointment to a chamber that has undergone a sometimes painful process to try to strip partisanship from its ranks over the last decade.
Trudeau kicked Liberal senators out of the national caucus at the height of the Senate expenses scandal in 2014 and then implemented a process to appoint only Independents to the upper house once he became prime minister.
The chamber, once defined almost exclusively by a Liberal-Conservative split, has since divided into five groups and caucuses and some non-affiliated members.
Most Trudeau appointees sit as members of the Independent Senators Group, although some have also joined the Progressive Senate Group and the Canadian Senators Group. Five members of the Government Representative’s Office help usher legislation through the Senate.
The 11 Conservative senators that remain are members of the national party caucus. The other roughly 80 senators are not part of a party that must face the electorate.
Detractors say the Trudeau process stripped the chamber of political actors in favour of neophytes, rendering it irrelevant. Supporters, meanwhile, say the push to appoint Independents has made the chamber less beholden to the government-of-the-day and party interests.
End to non-partisan picks
The Prime Minister’s Office said the Trudeau-era process that largely excluded partisans needs to end.
“This decision 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,” it said in a news release.
To that end, the PMO said the Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments, which has been used to sort through applications from would-be senators with an eye to those who are “independent and non-partisan,” will be reconstituted.
“Guided by constitutional requirements and merit-based criteria, the board will identify highly qualified candidates with diverse experience and perspectives, and make recommendations to the prime minister,” the PMO said.
“Canadians are invited to apply to serve in the Senate through an application process that will open in the coming weeks.”
The Trudeau changes also largely did away with whips in the upper house — senators who ensured attendance and enforced party discipline on some key government bills. As a result, the upper house has become much more unpredictable.
As a chamber essentially composed of lone wolves, the Senate has had a freer hand to take its time to debate and consider legislation.
Industry Minister Mélanie Joly says while Richard Martel has served as a Conservative MP since 2018, he will sit as an Independent after being appointed to the Senate by Prime Minister Mark Carney on Tuesday.
Over the last 10 years, the chamber has been much more active in amending government bills, which can slow down the legislative process. There has also been a proliferation of Senate public bills, legislation akin to a private member’s bill in the Commons, which critics inside the chamber itself say has distracted the place from its main constitutional responsibility: reviewing government legislation.
The PMO said the government is “acting with urgency and ambition” and the Senate will require “strong, effective and focused representatives who can ensure Canada’s institutions are equipped to respond to the challenges of the country they serve.”