The problem with politicians is that they will insist on indulging in partisan politicking, the distasteful and grubby manipulation of affairs to advance their own, or party, fortunes.
It leaves a bad taste in the mouth of the electorate who can see it for what it is — an odious form of political nepotism.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has always been politically rapacious, to the benefit of himself, his party and his friends.
One might sigh, plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose, but Trudeau pledged to do politics differently. Turns out he’s not so different after all. Are we surprised?
CBC reported this week that Trudeau, before he leaves office on March 9, wants to fill the 10 vacant positions in the Senate. During his time in office, Trudeau has appointed 90 of the 105-seat chamber. (During his nine years in office, Stephen Harper appointed 59 senators.)
Stacking the Senate with partisan appointments is one way Trudeau can leave a legacy of pain for the Conservatives. An upper chamber hostile to a Conservative government has the means to be a large legislative thorn in its side.
And indeed, Trudeau will leave behind him a Senate steeped in Liberal partisanship and patronage — the very evils he promised to end eleven years ago.
In January 2014, Trudeau issued a statement declaring: “Major Announcement: Ending partisanship and patronage in the Senate.”
“The Senate is broken, and needs to be fixed,” he said.
Trudeau said partisanship meant senators were focused on what was good for their party and not the country. “Under Mr. Harper we have seen it at its worst — it amplifies the Prime Minister’s power.”
He said he would end patronage so that the Senate was not “run like the prime minister’s private club.”
Trudeau said Harper and the Conservatives could no longer tell the difference between party interest and public interest.
“That’s poor judgment. More than that, it’s just plain wrong,” said Trudeau.
To reform the Senate, Trudeau created an Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments. Senators appointed by the prime minister would sit as independents and not as Liberals.
And yet despite these apparent reforms the Senate still appears to be the prime minister’s private club as an examination of Trudeau’s appointments show.
There may well be 90 independent senators in the chamber of “sober second thought” but it is astonishing how many are affiliated with the Liberals.
In his 2014 statement, Trudeau pledged that with regard to Senate appointments there would be “no more announcements the week before Christmas, under the cover of darkness.”
Last year, on December 19, the week before Christmas and two days before the darkest night of the year, Trudeau announced his latest Senate appointments.
The new senators were Allister Surette (a former Liberal politician) and Nancy Karetak-Lindell (a former Liberal MP).
In August 2024, Trudeau appointed two other senators, one being Daryl Fridhandler, a regular donor to the Liberals and a former fundraiser and political organizer for the party.
So much for independence.
Last year, Radio-Canada analyzed Trudeau’s Senate appointments over the previous year and found 66 per cent had either donated money to the Liberals or had worked for the party. They included Victor Boudreau, a longtime Liberal, Rodger Cuzner, a former Cape Breton MP and John McNair, a former provincial Liberal chief of staff.
Despite the advisory board being “independent” and Trudeau’s picks sitting as “independents”, the Senate has a remarkably heavy Liberal bias.
Conservative senator Claude Carignan told the CBC, “For someone who advocated an independent Senate, (Trudeau) will have ended up filling the Senate with a large majority of Liberals or people who support his policies.”
But if the process to select senators really is independent then why the prime minister’s sudden rush to fill the 10 vacancies before he quits? Could it be that Trudeau is determined to pack more partisan Liberals into the second chamber?
Constitutionally, Trudeau may have announced his resignation but he is still prime minister with all the powers that the position entails. He would claim that it is within his rights to appoint the senators.
But legitimately, Trudeau is a lame-duck prime minister and the Liberals a moribund party that may be weeks away from being kicked out of government. This is not a case of business as usual.
The prorogation of Parliament has stopped business in the House and the Senate. If Parliament had not been prorogued, then Trudeau was facing a House where all the major opposition parties had promised to vote non confidence in the government and bring it down.
Meanwhile, many cabinet ministers who should be focused on the threat of tariffs from U.S. President Donald Trump are out on the campaign trail for Liberal leadership contenders. Chrystia Freeland, the former finance minister and Karina Gould, the Liberal House Leader, are spending their energies fighting for that top spot.
A Canadian government right now should be laser focused on fighting off an aggressive Trump who threatens to ignite a trade war as well as ensuring our democracy is protected from the “existential” threat from foreign actors who, according to Justice Marie-Josée Hogue’s final report on foreign interference, seek to undermine it.
But no, the prime minister will spend his final lame-duck days packing the Senate with his acolytes, leaving us with, to use Trudeau’s words from 2014, “a hyper-political, hyper-partisan Senate that is, more than ever, the prime minister’s private plaything.”
National Post