Pamela Wallin resigns from Senate two years before mandatory retirement

OTTAWA — Pamela Wallin, a trail-blazing broadcaster and Order of Canada recipient, has resigned from the Senate.

Her biography on the Senate website listed her on Monday as a former senator, and the clerk of the Senate received a resignation letter from the longtime Saskatchewan lawmaker effective Sunday, according to the Senate of Canada.

Wallin and her office did not immediately respond to requests for comment and she had not made a public statement about leaving the Senate as of Monday afternoon.

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iPolitics first reported her departure, citing a note sent to the Senate by the chamber’s clerk.

Speaking on behalf of the Canadian Senators Group, Sen. Flordeliz Osler said in a media statement that Wallin spent her career “asking difficult questions, challenging conventional thinking, and standing firmly behind her convictions.”

“From breaking barriers in Canadian journalism to representing Canada on the international stage and advocating passionately for the rights and dignity of Canadians in the Senate, she has never been one to shy away from difficult conversations,” said Osler.

Wallin, who is from Wadena, Sask., represented her home province in the Senate. She is two years shy of the mandatory retirement age of 75.

She was appointed to the Senate in 2009 by Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Wallin became a key figure in the 2013 Senate expenses scandal after an audit found about $140,000 of the $500,000 in travel expenses she had billed to the Senate were improper because they were related to her work on corporate boards.

In May 2013, Harper’s chief of staff asked her to leave the Conservative caucus in the Senate.

During an interview with The National that year, Wallin apologized and said she did not “deliberately set out to use the system or abuse the system.”

She attributed the mistakes to carelessness in dealing with mounds of paperwork and said she didn’t pay enough attention to her expense filings.

In September, when she repaid some $150,000, including interest, a defiant Wallin called out what she described as a “lynch mob” mentality in the Senate.

She was suspended without pay from the Senate in November 2013 over disallowed expenses, along with Mike Duffy and Patrick Brazeau.

Her Senate suspension was lifted when Parliament was dissolved for the 2015 election.

The RCMP investigated Wallin's expenses but didn't lay any charges. In 2016, the police force announced Wallin would not be charged.

“I’m very relieved after three long years … I’m glad this nightmare is over,” Wallin told reporters at the time.

She sat as an Independent until she joined the Independent Senators Group in 2017. She would switch to the Canadian Senators Group in 2019, who she had sat with since.

Wallin spoke earlier this month with national media about upcoming changes to the country’s laws on medical assistance in dying, or MAID. She has been an outspoken supporter of MAID and served on multiple parliamentary committees that have studied the issue in recent years.

She was made an officer of the Order of Canada in 2007, in part because of her accomplishments as a broadcaster.

Wallin became a household name after being named co-host of Canada AM in 1981. She was tapped to lead CTV’s Ottawa bureau in 1985, making her the first woman to head a national television news bureau in Canada, and was the producer and host of the network’s flagship political show Question Period.

She broke ground again in 1992 when she became the first woman to co-anchor a nightly news show in Canada, CBC’s Prime Time News.

Wallin had surgery for colorectal cancer in 2001 but continued a tour to promote her book at the time.

In 2002, she was named consul general to New York.

With files from The Canadian Press, CityNews and CBC News