Trudeau appoints seven new senators: Diversity and inclusion in this first batch

The first batch of Senate appointments provide initial confirmation of the Government’s intent to diversity and inclusion in appointments. The chart above contrasts appointments by previous Prime Ministers with those made Friday (former PM Martin made no appointments during his short tenure).

Prime Minister Harper made many visible minority Senate appointments, partially as part of its engagement strategy with new Canadian voters and to address representation gaps elsewhere.

In addition to the large share of women appointed, the presence of one visible minority, one Indigenous person, and one person with disability (although given her accomplishments, hard to consider Chantal Petitclerc as such), the regional balance of these initial appointments include three from Ontario and two each from Quebec and Manitoba.

The real challenge for the Government will be less with respect to these high profile announcements but the more mundane Governor-in-Council appointments that will be made over coming years (about 1,500 positions, currently just over 1,300 filled) and the range of judicial appointments that will emerge in coming years:

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is appointing the head of his transition team and six other Canadians to the Senate in the first injection of fresh blood to the scandal-plagued institution in three years, sources said.

Mr. Trudeau is set to announce on Friday that he is calling on Peter Harder, a retired senior bureaucrat and high-level corporate adviser, to be the Liberal government’s leader in the Senate. In addition to Mr. Harder, the six new senators will be:

• Raymonde Gagné, former president of Manitoba’s Université de Saint-Boniface;
• Frances Lankin, a minister in the former Ontario NDP government and a national security expert;
• Ratna Omidvar, an expert on migration and diversity, and executive director at Ryerson University’s Global Diversity Exchange;
• Chantal Petitclerc, a champion Paralympic wheelchair racer and Team Canada chef de mission at the Rio Paralympic Games;
• André Pratte, an award-winning editorial writer and federalist thinker from Quebec;
• Murray Sinclair, a retired Manitoba judge and former chair of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission into residential schools.

Mr. Harder will face the tough task of moving government legislation through a fractious Senate in which the Liberal Party has no control over any other members. Still stinging from a recent spending scandal, the institution is also set to release on Monday a final report on the expenses claims of 14 senators who challenged the Auditor-General’s call for reimbursements.

Mr. Trudeau’s six other appointees will be expected to act as independent-minded legislators, as the Prime Minister aims to eliminate partisanship in the upper chamber and improve its reputation.

The Senate is currently composed of 42 Conservative senators, 26 Liberal senators (who are not part of the Liberal caucus of MPs) and 13 non-aligned senators.

Source: Trudeau set to appoint seven new senators – The Globe and Mail