Diversity highlighted in PM’s Senate choices

Members won’t join caucus as Trudeau aims to build a less partisan chamber

OTTAWA— An indigenous judge, an athlete, an educator and even a provincial New Democrat cabinet minister are among the seven Canadians that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has asked to join the Senate.

“(They) will help advance the important objective to transform the Senate into a less partisan and more independent institution that can perform its fundamental roles in the legislative process more effectively — including the representation of regional and minority interests — by removing the element of partisanship and ensuring that the interests of Canadians are placed before political allegiances,” Trudeau said Friday in a news release.

The seven senators, who all agreed to sit as Independents and will not join the Liberal caucus of MPs, were selected from a list of 25 names delivered to Trudeau by an independent advisory board that is overseeing a new, non-partisan appointments process that was designed to be nonpartisan.

The Conservatives, however, were quick to express their doubts.

“All of them are worthy members of Canadian society, who can serve adequately the Senate of Canada. The only exception I take is to this charade that Trudeau is parading around, pretending that somehow they are not partisan, Liberal appointments made by a Liberal prime minister,” said Conservative Sen. Leo Housakos, chair of the Senate standing committee on internal economy, budgets and administration.

The individuals Trudeau is recommending to Gov. Gen. David Johnston, who does the actual appointing, includes Peter Harder, a career federal public servant who headed the transition team that prepared the Trudeau government to take power. Harder will represent Ontario. Harder will be “styled” as a nonpartisan government “representa- tive” who will facilitate the introduction of government legislation in the upper chamber, but he will officially be government leader in the Senate because that is what the Parliament of Canada Act and Senate rules and procedures require.

“We hope it is a temporary circum- stance,” government House leader Dominic LeBlanc said in an interview Friday of this semantic situation.

LeBlanc has asked the Senate leadership to come up with suggested amendments to the Parliament of Canada Act “to better reflect a more independent and less partisan government leadership in the Senate.”

LeBlanc said he expects Harder, who will be sworn in as a privy councillor, to frequently attend meetings of the cabinet committee on legislation and parliamentary affairs.

LeBlanc also brushed aside sugges- tions the role he played on the transition team is a sign of Liberal bias, saying Trudeau brought him on board for his deep knowledge of the senior public service and machinery of government.

In an interview Friday, Harder said he would not have agreed to join the Senate had he been asked to sit as a Liberal.

“I think it would be inconsistent with the efforts to modernize the Senate, to take partisanship out, to have the Senate focused on the issues and interests to Canadians and to represent the regions and the professional diversity that they come to the Senate with,” said Harder, who once worked as a political staffer for Joe Clark when he was leader of the Progressive Conservatives in the 1970s.

Asked what he would do if the Trudeau government introduced legislation he disagreed with, however, Harder suggested he did not expect that to happen — although noted it was a hypothetical question.

“Let’s see what the future brings. I don’t foresee this government bringing forward legislation consistent with its platform with which I would have a difficulty,” said Harder.

The Star’s view, IN10