There is a Doctor in the House: Physicians in the Canadian Parliament (1867–2025)

Background Physician advocacy—recognized as a desired competency by both the CanMEDS framework and the Medical Council of Canada—can play a role in prioritizing health in public policy. However, there are clashing perspectives regarding physicians’ political participation, and the level of physician participation in Canadian politics remains unclear. The purpose of this retrospective descriptive review was to carry out historical documentation of the Canadian physicians elected as Members of Parliament (MPs) or appointed as Senators and identify trends in sociodemographic characteristics and political participation. Methods We identified Canadian physician parliamentarians and collected sociodemographic characteristics using publicly available data sources—specifically, the Library of Parliament’s Parliamentarians database, Canadian newspaper archives, biographies available on the parliamentarians’ official websites, and public registers for licensed physicians. Findings were tabulated and summarized using descriptive statistics and graphical presentation. Results We found that to date, 220 of 4,695 (4.69%) MPs, and 64 of 1,006 (6.4%) Senators have been physicians. Most physician decision-makers are men (96.8%), represent a riding in Ontario (38.6%) or Quebec (27.7%), and tend to run for office more than once (90%). We also found that since the first Parliament in 1867, there has consistently been at least one physician in the House of Commons, though there has been a steep decline in political participation since the 17th Parliament. Discussion Our study is the first to present a complete list of Canadian physicians elected to serve as MPs, or appointed to serve as Senators. We found that there has always been a physician in the House of Commons and the Senate: in fact, physicians are over-represented in Parliament compared to the general population. Despite over-representation, we note a decline in physician political participation, likely due to the increased rigor of standards to qualify as a physician and the challenges faced in political participation. This suggests a need to continue sustaining interest in pursuing political participation and advocacy among the current and next generation of physicians.