Senators have doubled overseas trips with costs to taxpayers jumping 88%, according to CTF

The Senate of Canada's current facility inside Ottawa's Old Union Station in June 2026. Photo by Marc Benoit /Cornwall Standard-Freeholder

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Canadian senators are costing taxpayers extensive amounts for overseas trips even though Members of Parliament are regularly representing Canada on the same trips, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. 

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A national overview of province-by-province senator overseas travel, released by the CTF this week, states that international trips undertaken between Jan. 16, 2023 and March 17, 2026 by 65 senators cost Canadian taxpayers $1,850,420. Overall, says the CTF, senators have nearly doubled their international travel spending in the last two years, with the costs climbing 88 per cent from $391,095 in 2023 to $736,165 in 2025, according to its analysis of parliamentary financial disclosures.

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The CTF takes the position that senators are unelected and as such should not be travelling anywhere outside of the country on the taxpayers’ tab. “Nobody votes for senators so these people represent exactly nobody,” said Kris Sims, spokesperson for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation in an email to National Post.

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Ontario Senator Salma Ataullahjan‘s international travel topped the CTF list, totalling $131,706 between January 2023 and March 2026 for 14 overseas trips. The CTF says Ataullahjan travelled to Mozambique, Botswana, Switzerland twice, Uzbekistan, the United States, Ethiopia, Tanzania, Angola, Costa Rica, Ghana, the Dominican Republic, Chile, Bahrain, Senegal and Cabo Verde. 

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Second in Canada was Newfoundland and Labrador Senator David Wells, whose travel for 17 international trips between 2023 and 2026 totalled $120,389. 

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Senator Salma Ataullahjan speak to refugees in St-Laurent, Quebec on May 31, 2016.

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Otherwise, looking at the CTF’s top Senate travellers on a per province basis across the rest of the country, Nova Scotia Senator Michael MacDonald took 17 trips abroad costing $85,000. B.C. Senator Margo Greenwood went onon 11 trips abroad costing more than $80,000, then P.E.I. Senator Percy Downe ($67,000), New Brunswick Senator René Cormier ($64,000), Manitoba Senator Gigi Osler ($61,000), former Saskatchewan Senator Brent Cotter ($19,000) and on the lower end, Alberta Senator Scott Tannas ($10,795). (Terrazzo told National Post in an email that the organization is holding off on a report about Quebec senators until after that province’s election on Monday.)

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Ataullahjan’s office responded to National Post with an emailed statement on Thursday, noting that the CTF’s “characterization of these expenses as having been incurred or billed by the Senator (is) not accurate. These are costs incurred by Parliament and administered by parliamentary personnel in the execution of parliamentary association responsibilities.”

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The statement said that the parliamentarians, which includes both MPs and senators, “selected to participate in these activities do not control or authorize these expenses.”

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Further, the statement noted that “Senate expense rules do not permit Senators to undertake international travel in their capacity as Senators. Senators travel internationally when selected to do so in their capacity as members of a parliamentary association or, on rare occasions, a committee.” 

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Sims said the “senators are absolutely spending taxpayers’ money on international trips, regardless of what label is being put on their travelling entourage. If senators are upset by being held accountable for this expenditure of taxpayers’ money, they can refuse to go on any international trips.”