The formerly non-affiliated New Brunswick Sen. David Richards has joined the Conservative Senate caucus and will sit with the party in the Red Chamber until his retirement later this year.
Richards, a bestselling author and one of only a handful of writers who has received a Governor General’s Award in both the non-fiction and fiction categories, was appointed to the Senate in 2018 by former prime minister Justin Trudeau.
“I’m proud to join the Conservative caucus and be part of a strong team that stands up for Canadians,” he said in a statement released by the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, Sen. Leo Housakos.
The party said that since his appointment, Richards has “demonstrated a consistent commitment to core conservative values,” including “respect for freedom of expression” and “individual responsibility.”
“We are proud to welcome Senator Richards to a growing Conservative Senate Caucus — one that is home to diverse opinions and healthy debate,” Housakos said in a statement.
On her way into the Conservative caucus meeting Wednesday, Conservative Senator Denise Batters said she was “very excited” that Richards had decided to join her team. “Its going to be great,” she said.
At the time of his appointment, Richards said he was “sitting as an independent man,” and that he would “make my own decisions to the best of my ability when I’m in the chamber.”
Richards, who was a co-winner of the 2000 Giller Prize for his novel Mercy Among the Children and has received a number of other prestigious awards, including two Geminis for script writing, will continue to represent New Brunswick.
The senator is an avid hunter who has been an outspoken critic of Bill C-21, the Liberal government’s 2023 gun control legislation.
“This bill is actually cowardly in whom it points the finger at and blames, and it still will not solve the problem of violence. I wish it did, but this bill will not stop the gangs. The law, in its own blind way, actually proposes to recruit them,” Richards told the Senate in the summer of 2023.
Conservative senators dwindling
As third-party leader, Trudeau removed all Liberal senators from the national caucus at the height of the Senate expenses scandal in 2014.
With this appointment, the Conservative caucus in the Senate stands at 12. The current standings in the Senate now sit at 45 senators in the Independent Senators Group; 21 in the Canadian Senators Group; 18 in the Progressive Senate Group; and eight non-affiliated senators, with one vacant seat left to fill.
Canadian senators must retire when they turn 75 which means that already small caucus will shrink later this year when Conservative Quebec Senator Judith Seidman retires in September and Richards retires the following month.
When Newfoundland and Labrador Conservative Senator Elizabeth Marshall retires in September next year and Ontario Senator Salma Ataullahjan retires in April 2027, the Conservatives the caucus will be down to only eight seats.
