New Senate appointments process should stay Senator Dalphond – SenCA+
May 2, 2025
Since the 2015 election, the Senate of Canada has transformed from an echo chamber for the lines of the Liberal and Conservative parties into a valuable institution of sober second thought, as originally contemplated.
This transformation rests on a commitment made in 2015 by former prime minister Justin Trudeau to invite Canadians of all stripes to apply to the Senate, and to appoint only persons who have been recommended by an Independent Advisory Board. The 100 senators appointed through the new system were all told that they were independent from the government. Most of them have since affiliated with either the Progressive Senate Group, the Canadian Senators Group or the Independent Senators Group. These three recognized Senate parliamentary groups act independently from Canada’s political parties, and don’t caucus with them. Only the fourth recognized group, the Conservatives, caucuses regularly with Tory MPs and follows the direction of their party leader.
Freed from party discipline, most senators believe in an Upper Chamber that fulfils its constitutional duty of sober legislative review.
