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Pamela Wallin has resigned from Canada’s Senate, telling 650 CKOM that it’s time to get “the next generation” involved.
“I am happy and healthy and want to do some other things. I’m a believer that you shouldn’t go to the Senate for life, and I probably stayed a little longer than I thought I would,” she said on Monday.
Wallin was appointed to the upper chamber in 2009 by then Prime Minister Stephen Harper.
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Hailing from Wadena, Wallin had a trail-blazing career as a broadcaster and became the first woman to be named bureau chief for CTV News in Ottawa in 1985.
Reflecting on her legacy, she spoke about her advocacy for changes to medical assistance in dying (MAID) legislation, after watching her mother with Alzheimer’s.
“I have really been focused on is the question of advance requests, and the government has indicated that it wants to decriminalize that part of the bill.”
Wallin says more than 85 per cent of the Canadian population supports MAID, and that they want to have more choices about their end of life.
Wallin also reflected on her time in the United States working on Canada-U.S. relations.
“It goes back to the time of 9/11. We’ve been friends through a lot. Our prime ministers and our leaders have often had disagreements, but the relationship itself is so important, particularly for people who do business and sell their products over the border,” she said.
She said she hopes that relationship isn’t lost amid “clashing personalities.”
The future of the Senate and ‘sober second thought’
Wallin said she understands many people are frustrated with the Senate.
Question 7 of the Alberta 2026 referendum asks whether the Alberta government should join other willing provinces “to amend the Canadian Constitution to abolish the unelected federal Senate.”
Wallin maintains it plays an important role in democracy.
“The senators are there to represent their provinces. … Do I wish the west had larger representation in the Senate? 100 per cent. The populations have grown and changed and the constitutional allocation of seats hasn’t.”
Wallin said Alberta, with a population of five million, has six seats, while Prince Edward Island and its 150,000 inhabitants has four.
Despite this, she feels there are bigger issues to focus on.
“We’ve got everything from debt to whether or not we really can do something big and build better in this country, we need pipelines, we need relationships with our biggest customer. We need some more modern new thinking about how to approach work.”
When asked what the future holds, Wallin says she plans to keep things simple.
“I’ve got events that I do. I do a podcast: No Nonsense with Pamela Wallin. I started that back in during COVID. I try to explain the legislative process, and some of the issues we’re discussing and why it can be so frustratingly slow at some points. I find people are interested in that.”
After Wallin became embroiled in the Senate expenses scandal that started in 2013, she was asked to leave the Conservative caucus.
An audit determined that about $140,000 in expenses she charged to the Senate were improper as they covered travel related to her positions on corporate boards.
Wallin is two years shy of the mandatory retirement age of 75.
— with files from the Canadian Press
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