Though it is perhaps not foremost on their minds when they gain power, every prime minister has the opportunity to put their stamp on the Senate. And if there was particular speculation about what Mark Carney might do in regards to Parliament’s upper house, it is because Justin Trudeau’s stamp on the Senate was both novel and potentially significant.
In the wake of an expense scandal that brought new scorn upon the Red Chamber — and with the Supreme Court ruling that provincial consent was required to either abolish the Senate or turn it into an elected chamber — Trudeau set out more than a decade ago to establish a more independent Senate.
In 2014, as leader of the Liberal Party, he abruptly ejected senators from the Liberal parliamentary caucus. Then, as prime minister, he set up an advisory board to recommend applicants, with “nonpartisanship” listed as criteria.
Prospective senators were informed that they would be required to demonstrate that “they have the ability to bring a perspective and contribution to the work of the Senate that is independent and nonpartisan.”
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Though the government maintained a small team of “representatives” in the Senate, the remaining senators were left beyond the prime minister’s immediate control or authority.
The result was, in broad strokes, a different kind of Senate. Trudeau’s appointments, though not entirely free of partisans, were not dominated by the sorts of party loyalists and apparatchiks that previous prime ministers had sent to the Senate. And the upper chamber rediscovered some interest in asserting itself.
Between 2011 and 2015, the last four years of Stephen Harper’s time as prime minister, the Senate amended just a single government bill sent to it from the House of Commons. Since 2016, the Senate has amended 37 bills.
But when Trudeau resigned, there was no guarantee that his reforms would be carried on.
On Tuesday, Carney started to put his own stamp on the Senate with a handful of appointments and a tweak to the Trudeau-era guidelines that raise at least the spectre of a return to the partisan Senate of the past.
Though it is still possible to avoid a full return to the pre-Trudeau Red Chamber.
Two of Carney’s first four appointees have notably partisan backgrounds.
Tom Pitfield occupied a senior role in Carney’s office and has been an influential Liberal strategist for more than a decade (Trudeau and Pitfield have been friends since childhood and their fathers worked closely together). Richard Martel was, until this morning, the Conservative MP for the Quebec riding of Chicoutimi-Le Fjord.
(Earlier this year, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre publicly appealed to Carney to appoint more Conservative senators. But he might not have imagined the prime minister would be choosing from his Conservative MPs.)
Whatever their histories, both will apparently sit as Independents, at least initially.
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In announcing the appointments, the Prime Minister’s Office said the government would be maintaining an independent advisory body, but that it would be “expanding the criteria for new applicants to the Senate.”
For one thing, “recruitment of candidates with enhanced focus and expertise in key Canadian strategic industries, regulatory frameworks and emerging social and economic affairs will be an added focus.” But the Carney government will also be “removing the nonpartisanship criterion for Senate appointments.”
What that might mean in practice is not immediately clear.
While Trudeau’s focus was on an independent, nonpartisan Senate, that did not amount to a full ban on anyone who had ever participated in partisan politics.
Among his first appointees in 2016 was Frances Lankin, who had been an NDP MPP and cabinet minister in Ontario, and Peter Harder, who had been an adviser in Brian Mulroney’s Progressive Conservative government in the 1980s. Near the end of his time as prime minister, Trudeau put former Liberal MP Rodger Cuzner and former Ontario Liberal MPP Sandra Pupatello in the Senate.
But it’s still true that Trudeau largely opted for Canadians with exemplary careers outside partisan politics and moved away from the long tradition of using Senate appointments to reward loyal Liberal partisans. Just as important, by the time Trudeau was done, the vast majority of senators were unaffiliated with a party caucus — at present, only 11 Conservative senators remain as a link to the Senate’s pre-Trudeau existence.
Carney is not moving to invite senators back into the Liberal parliamentary caucus. But Tuesday’s announcement at least suggests he might be more willing than Trudeau to put prominent partisans in.
If the Senate has gained any credibility in the last decade — if there has been any meaningful improvement in its ability to act as a check on the government — then there is some reputational risk if the Senate returns to being a place that is synonymous with cushy patronage.
And Carney’s moves on Tuesday may well raise concerns about such a future. But a lot still depends on what the prime minister does next.
Harder, who served as the government representative in the Senate from 2016 to 2020 and authored a 51-page discussion paper in 2018 on the upper chamber’s role, says he does not see Carney’s changes to the application process as a reversal of Trudeau’s reforms.
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Instead, Harder sees an “acknowledgement that political experience is helpful in a legislative body, even an appointed one.” In the past, Harder says, he advocated behind the scenes for more senators with legislative experience. And he hopes some new senators join the Conservative Senate caucus (two of Trudeau’s appointees already have), which Harder believes has still played a valuable role over the last 10 years.
The idea of an independent Senate would actually be threatened, Harder says, if senators were invited back into the Liberal caucus.
The Senate, Harder contends, has been doing well to fulfil its constitutional responsibility. At a minimum, it has not been mired in scandal. He expresses some concern with the number of bills that senators are introducing themselves, insofar as such initiatives might take time and energy away from studies by Senate committees. But Harder thinks the Senate has authored several studies that have positively contributed to public debate. And he believes the Senate is usefully scrutinizing legislation without being a roadblock to the will of the House of Commons.
“It is an improved institution. It’s operating effectively. It provides the constitutional role effectively in terms of oversight of government legislation,” Harder says. “It’s not a rubber stamp, but nor is it an obstacle to the government achieving what they wish.”
Grumbles from within the government that the Senate is not moving fast enough to pass legislation have bubbled up in various recent reports. But such complaints are perhaps as old as the Senate itself. (Harder says that when he became the government’s representative in the Senate, a former government Senate leader told him to tell Trudeau’s ministers not to complain about the pace with which legislation was moving in the Senate because nothing would more irritate senators.)
Notably, in recent announcements — the appointment of a new Governor General, a process to rebuild the official residence at 24 Sussex — Carney has expressed a reverence for Canada’s institutions and a belief that leaders have a responsibility to maintain those institutions.
And so, whatever he does next, Carney might be mindful of not only his own interests, but also the long-term interests of a potentially important institution.
