This week, Prime Minister Mark Carney put his stamp on one of Canada’s least loved institutions: the Senate.
Carney announced new appointments to the upper chamber and removed a requirement that new senators be non-partisan. The latter was a key Trudeau-era reform, alongside removing previously appointed Liberal senators from the party’s caucus.
Carney’s appointees this week included Tom Pitfield, a longtime Liberal strategist, and Richard Martel, a sitting Conservative MP.
Here are our thoughts on this change and the Senate’s role more broadly, informed by our three years covering Parliament, politics and people.
Partisanship
Carney is right to scrap the requirement that candidates be non-partisan.
The people most likely to be interested in and suited to a Senate appointment are generally going to be political operators. And that is not a bad thing. You want people who care about political ideas, political institutions and political life in the role.
Moreover, Trudeau’s push for non-partisanship was arguably a facade.
In 2024, we interviewed André Pratte, a Quebec journalist and former senator, who was one of the early “Independent senators” appointed by then-prime minister Justin Trudeau.
Before accepting the appointment, Pratte said he had sought assurances from Trudeau that he would be free to vote his conscience.
“When I was appointed, the prime minister called … and I said I only have one question. ‘Will I be able to vote along my conscience, my own ideas?’” Pratte told Canadian Affairs.
“And [Trudeau] said ‘Yes.’ So I took him seriously. But that’s not really the way it worked.”
“[O]nce the senator is appointed, they put a lot of pressure on them to vote on the side of the government.”
In 2019, a disillusioned Pratte resigned.
Efficacy
Like Pratte, many senators are impressive, accomplished individuals.
To cite just two examples, Carney’s two other appointees this week were Dr. Rodney Ouellette, a physician and cancer researcher from New Brunswick, and Geeta Tucker, a chartered professional accountant and corporate executive from Manitoba.
The role of these experienced, knowledgeable individuals is to rigorously review proposed bills — to hear from experts and the public, to conduct further study, to propose revisions.
However, we would like to see more of this careful work reflected in the final product.
This summer, Canadian Affairs is covering the major bills that passed into law in June in an end-of-season legislative blitz. As we reported last week, many of these bills did not receive the careful thought they deserved.
For example, experts say a new pesticides law, Bill C-30, passed without any expert or public consultation.
Similarly, a parliamentary committee was given just 30 minutes to complete a clause-by-clause review of Bill C-22, a bill that would give police significant new search powers.
As one of our reporters put it: What is the point of having two chambers full of talented individuals if their input is not considered?
This points to a need for procedural reform. This may be less sexy than talking about abolishing the Senate or electing senators, but it would be both more feasible and effective.
Appropriate role
The Senate walks a fine line: it should review and suggest improvements to bills sent to it from the House of Commons; it should not, as an unelected body, invent material new laws or obstruct the House of Commons’ work.
Occasionally, the Senate gets this wrong.
For example, MAID for mental illness — which would represent a material change to Canada’s assisted dying laws — originated in the Senate. We would argue this was an overstep of the Senate’s proper role.
More famously, in 1990, a Liberal-majority Senate went to great lengths to obstruct the Mulroney government from introducing a Goods and Services Tax. (Ultimately, the prime minister got his way by adding eight new Senate seats and filling them with Conservatives. But this was a brazen example of Senate overreach.)
Where we would say the Senate can more appropriately shift policy is by putting out reports or studies on topical but unpopular ideas.
For example, Canadian Affairs recently covered a Senate report recommending Old Age Security reform. This report has sparked media coverage and popular debate over social benefits reform — a topic we would say is long overdue.
We would welcome a similar report on comprehensive tax reform or health-care reform.
Elected officials can lack the incentives to broach these politically sensitive files. But they absolutely need to be broached.
A politically insulated and expertly staffed institution like the Senate is the perfect body to do it.
Senate needs to mean something and do something exceptional. And the biggest problem is that the appointments are political. If it were my choice. I will be looking across the broad spectrum of Canadians. Commerce industry. Education. Post secondary education. Professionals. And likely the people I would S choose. Do not have high profiles. But are highly intelligent. And well informed. Anything else is trifling.