Talk:List of current senators of Canada

Upcoming Retirements

I removed the section called "Upcoming Retirements" because this information is readily available in the main chart if you sort by retirement date. Canadianpoliticaljunkie (talk) 09:36, 11 March 2025 (UTC)

Understanding that we should have a discussion here before making this change, (with apologies to User:Wellington Bay), I'd like to recommend that we remove this section, as it unnecessarily adds to the length of the article, when the same information (and more) can easily be seen by sorting the list by "Mandatory Retirement Date".

Is there any benefit to maintaining a separate list? Canadianpoliticaljunkie (talk) 14:03, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

From what I can tell, the list of upcoming retirements specifically listed the senators due to retire in the current session of parliament (presumably it stretches to 2026 because, constitutionally, a parliament can last a maximum of five years, even if the fixed-election dates mandates four). It's a quick indicator of how many appointments the incumbent PM could make. Whether that is worth keeping is a fair question, but that seems to be the reason it's split into its own section instead of left to the reader to discover in the tables. — Kawnhr (talk) 18:05, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

It's also useful as it flags to editors when updates to the page need to be made (and those of the senators on question) due to imminent retirements. Also, as retirements are an ongoing feature of senate composition it merits a section. Wellington Bay (talk) 18:32, 12 March 2025 (UTC)

Proposal: Collapsing supplementary tables for readability

I’d like to suggest collapsing three sections of the page by default, just to tidy up the layout and improve readability for most users:

• Membership changes since the last election
• Standings changes since the last election
• Upcoming retirements

These sections present helpful information, but they’re all essentially different views of data that’s already visible in the main list. For example:

- The “Membership changes” and “Standings changes” tables are just historical breakdowns for readers who want a deeper dive. - The “Upcoming retirements” table only exists to help editors track when updates might be needed — the same retirement dates are already shown in the main list (with thanks to User:Wellington Bay for clarifying for me how this section is used).

None of these are critical for understanding the current Senate lineup, and hiding them by default could make the page cleaner without removing anything. I’d use {{Collapse top}} and {{Collapse bottom}}, with clear labels so anyone can expand the sections easily.

This seems in line with WP:Manual of Style/Layout#Collapsible content, which advises against collapsing *essential* information — but that's not the case here.

Happy to hear any thoughts or concerns. If there’s no objection in the next little while, I’ll go ahead and make the change. Thanks! Canadianpoliticaljunkie (talk) 13:37, 22 March 2025 (UTC)

Major table update and article cleanup (March 2025)

Just wanted to flag some major updates to this article that I’ve been working on. Most of the changes are aimed at cleaning up the structure, improving consistency, and making the page easier to read and maintain.

What changed

• Main table completely rebuilt – All 105 current senators are now represented, sorted correctly, with consistent formatting and layout. Colours and affiliations are aligned with the {{Canadian party colour}} template.
• Shortened long titles – Many of the titles in the "Titles" column were wrapping and causing the rows to expand vertically. I shortened them (e.g. "Deputy Representative of the Government in the Senate" → "Deputy Gov. Representative") while preserving clarity.
• Affiliations cleaned up – Abbreviated groups like ISG, CSG, and PSG now use `` for hover-tooltips instead of direct links. “Conservative” is spelled out for clarity. Non-affiliated stays as-is.
• Sticky headers, colspan, and layout fixes – Header sticks when you scroll. Colour bars now appear in their own cells using `colspan=2`, like the official Senate layout. Also fixed some duplicated row markers and width issues.
• Date format switched – The article now uses day-month-year (dmy) format, which is standard for Canadian topics. The tag at the top reflects this.
• Footnotes added to headers – The "Name" column now includes a proper citation for the source list, and the "Division" column explains Quebec’s special Senate division setup.
• Broken references cleaned up – The old MapleLeafWeb source was broken, so I replaced it with references to the Senate and Parliament’s own sites.

New collapsible sections

To help reduce visual clutter, I made three sections collapsible:

• Membership changes since the last election
• Standings changes since the last election
• Upcoming retirements

This keeps the focus on the current senator list but still keeps everything else easily accessible.

Retirement table updated

The "Upcoming retirements" section is now a full table instead of a bullet list. It includes all senators scheduled to retire before the next federal election (currently set for 28 April 2029), sorted by retirement date. It uses the same formatting as the main table for consistency.

Looking ahead

Still open to more improvements (maybe a provincial breakdown next?), but this should be a solid foundation.

Would love any feedback — if you like the new format, or if anything looks off or could be improved, feel free to jump in or leave a note here. Thanks! Canadianpoliticaljunkie (talk) 06:08, 26 March 2025 (UTC)

Changed "Province / Division" column header to "Province or Territory (Senate Division)"

Hello, I've updated the column header in this template from "Province / Division" to "Province or Territory (Senate Division)".

The rationale for this change is to improve clarity and accessibility. The new header more accurately reflects the content of the column, which includes both provinces (sometimes with Senate divisions in parentheses) and territories. This change aims to be more inclusive and easier for all users, including those using screen readers, to understand the geographical information presented in the table.

Please let me know if there are any concerns or further suggestions. Thank you. Canadianpoliticaljunkie (talk) Canadianpoliticaljunkie (talk) 18:36, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

Proposal for improving data consistency and update process

Noted that significant effort was needed to synchronize the data between the main lists of senators (and MPs) and the summary tables/text in this article (specifically "Standings" and "Appointment breakdown" in this article). Numbers for affiliations and provincial totals had become inconsistent, requiring manual cross-checking and correction.

This highlights a general challenge with manually maintaining complex, frequently updated lists like this one: ensuring data consistency across multiple tables and summaries is time-consuming and prone to error. Similar issues likely affect pages for MPs, given elections, by-elections, and caucus changes.

When senator details change (new appointments, retirements, affiliation changes), multiple parts of this article need updating:

1. The main list entry for the senator.
2. The "Standings" table (counts per province/affiliation).
3. The "Appointment breakdown" table (counts per PM/affiliation).
4. The summary text describing current numbers by affiliation.

To improve accuracy and maintainability, perhaps we could consider different approaches. Based on standard Wikipedia practices, here are a few options:

1. Manual Updates (Status Quo)

• Description: Continue updating all relevant sections manually as changes occur.
• Pros: Requires only standard editing skills, no complex setup needed.
• Cons: Prone to synchronization errors (as recently seen), time-consuming, relies on diligent editors noticing and correcting all relevant spots.

2. Dedicated Wikipedia Bot

• Description: A custom bot monitors reliable sources (e.g., official Parliament websites, or even better the Library of Parliament Database) and automatically updates the main lists, tables, and summary text.
• Pros: Potentially highly accurate, consistent, and fast updates. Reduces manual burden.
• Cons: Requires significant programming expertise, adherence to WP:Bot policy, formal community approval (WP:BRFA), and ongoing maintenance/monitoring. High barrier to entry.

3. Advanced Templates / Lua Modules

• Description: Store the core senator (and MP) data (name, province, affiliation, dates, appointing PM etc.) in a structured format on a dedicated subpage or within a Lua module. Use templates within this article to read that central data, generate the main list, and automatically calculate/display the summary tables and text counts.
• Pros: Ensures consistency within the article (update data once, it reflects everywhere). Leverages on-wiki tools. Reduces manual calculation errors.
• Cons: Requires significant expertise in advanced Wiki templating and potentially Lua scripting to design and implement. Initial setup is complex. Data still needs manual updating in the central location (though only once per change).

4. Wikidata Integration

• Description: Leverage Wikidata as the central data source. Information about each senator would be maintained on Wikidata. Templates on this page would query Wikidata to populate the main list and potentially calculate summary data.
• Pros: Promotes consistency across different Wikipedia language versions and Wikimedia projects. Centralizes data updates globally.
• Cons: Relies heavily on the completeness and accuracy of Wikidata entries for Canadian senators (and MPs). Requires expertise to create/adapt templates that can query and correctly format all the necessary information from Wikidata for this article's specific needs. May not perfectly handle all nuances or formatting requirements.

--- Given the recurring need for updates and the potential for errors with the current manual approach, I wanted to open a discussion among editors familiar with this page and Canadian political articles. What are your thoughts on these options? Is one preferable, or is there another approach we should consider? Is the current manual method sufficient if editors are simply more diligent?

Looking forward to hearing your perspectives.

Canadianpoliticaljunkie (talk) 14:12, 10 April 2025 (UTC)