Justin Trudeau is planning to fill the 10 vacancies in the Senate before he retires
OTTAWA — Last burst of fire? It seems so. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is probably planning a final wave of appointments to fill 10 Senate vacancies before his retirement in March, according to CBC Radio-Canada: an article by Daniel Leblanc reports that the process for future senators is underway and should be completed before the resigning Prime Minister leaves office.
After proroguing Parliament earlier this month, Trudeau announced he will step down after the Liberal Party chooses a new leader on March 9. But he is apparently preparing a final twist.
In recent years, Justin Trudeau has tapped several high-profile Liberals to serve in the Senate. Pierre Poilievre’s Conservative Party, which is leading in national polls, has long been critical of Trudeau’s choice of senators: the Conservatives now fear that Trudeau’s senators will try to block their program if their party wins the next election in the spring.
Trudeau has always spoken of “independent senators”, referring to the ones appointed by him, but in reality a significant number of senators chosen by him in recent years had partisan experiences, most often within the Liberal Party of Canada or its provincial sections.
It is difficult to identify them as such, however, given that Trudeau himself, a few years ago, cancelled the affiliation of “his” senators to the Liberal Party. It is therefore almost impossible, today, to understand what the exact balance of power in the Senate is.
According to the table published on the site https://sencanada.ca/en/senators (and here below), out of 105 senators, 41 belong to the Independent Senators group, 18 to the Canadian Senators group, 14 to the Progressive Group, 12 to the Conservative Party, 12 are not affiliated with any group while 8 positions (to which two more will be added starting in February) are vacant. Only the conservative “militancy”, therefore, is evident.
But can senators do a real and concrete opposition or not? Senators themselves agree that, as unelected legislators, they do not have the same democratic legitimacy as MPs and must act accordingly when it comes to voting for or against government bills. According to the Salisbury Convention, which dates back to the mid-20th century in the United Kingdom, the unelected chamber must not oppose government bills that have been the subject of clear election promises. However, many senators appointed by Trudeau say they will continue to act in the same way as they have under the current government, underlining that they are prepared to uphold key principles such as protecting minority rights and regional interests.
Several senators say they might oppose a government that uses the “notwithstanding clause” to prevent a Charter challenge to one of their bills. Poilievre has said he would use “any tool the Constitution allows” to pass criminal laws if his party forms the next government. The statement was widely seen as a promise to use the “clause” to strengthen the justice system.
The Conservative Party says Trudeau should wait until after the general election, when his party has been given the mandate to form a government, before appointing new people to the Senate. “Liberal leadership candidates must immediately speak out against this lame duck prime minister’s attempt to pack the Senate with his preferred candidates just before he leaves office” the Conservatives say. “They must also pledge not to fill Senate vacancies themselves until Canadians have had the opportunity to democratically mandate a new government in a general election…”.
There must be 105 senators in total, with eight currently missing (British Columbia 2, Nova Scotia 1, Ontario 3, Quebec 1, Saskatchewan 1), and ten in a few days when Senators Nancy J. Hartling (New Brunswick) and Jean-Guy Dagenais (Quebec) retire at age 75. Many communities complain about being under-represented in the Senate: for example, there are currently only two Italian-Canadian senators in office – Tony Loffreda (Quebec) and Toni Varone (Ontario) – despite the Italian community being one of the most important in terms of size and contribution to Canada’s growth. Will there be room for another Italian-Canadian among Trudeau’s ten new appointees?
In the pic above, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau (photo from Twitter X – @JustinTrudeau)