Prime Minister Mark Carney said he will consult with an independent advisory board set up under former prime minister Justin Trudeau before he moves to fill a growing list of Senate vacancies.
Some senators have said they're concerned about the growing list of vacancies in the upper chamber, with nine seats currently vacant and six senators set to retire later this year.
Carney has largely held his cards close to his chest on how he plans to go about making appointments to the Senate until now, and has yet to make an appointment to the upper chamber since taking office.
When asked by The Canadian Press about his plans for handling appointments on Wednesday, the prime minister revealed Senate appointments are on his agenda.
"We will be appointing senators in due course, and I will take into account advice of the independent advisory committee that was established by my predecessor," Carney said at a news conference in the Montreal suburb of Mirabel.
That was Carney's response in full, suggesting he's not going to shed much more light into his thought process just yet, either.
For the past year, the federal government has refrained from directly answering questions from The Canadian Press about how the next appointments will be made.
The Senate went through a major makeover under the last Liberal government.
As Liberal party leader, Trudeau kicked senators out of his caucus in 2014 in the wake of a Senate expense scandal in 2014, and vowed to end patronage appointments.
Later on, after he became prime minister, Trudeau set up an independent advisory board to recommend appointments.
Non-affiliated Sen. Marilou McPhedran had recently told The Canadian Press she worried the large number of vacancies may signal the end of senators being appointed through "largely a community-driven selection process at arm’s length from the patronage of the Prime Minister’s Office.”
Conservatives have long argued Trudeau's process does not produce a truly independent senate or properly reflect the country.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre said last month that Carney should appoint more Conservatives to the upper chamber.
"The Senate is not currently a reflection of the Canadian people," Poilievre said at a news conference on April 23.
Former prime minister Stephen Harper stopped appointing senators in 2013, after his efforts to reform the Senate with term limits were stymied by the courts. It left about two dozen vacancies in the upper chamber when Trudeau took office, and over his decade in office, he appointed 100 people to the Senate.
More than three in four members currently in the Senate were appointed by Trudeau.
Trudeau's process also fell under heightened scrutiny when he made a series of partisan appointments in the last years before he left office. Such appointments included former Liberal MP Rodger Cuzner, former Ontario Liberal MPP Sandra Pupatello, and prominent Liberal party donors.
The Senate appointments advisory board was designed to produce non-partisan appointment recommendations for the prime minister.
The board's website currently states that new applications or nominations for Senate appointments are not being accepted for consideration.
The board currently has three core, federal members. It takes on two additional members from the province or territory where a vacancy exists, but those seats at the table are largely vacant.
Its website currently lists 24 vacancies, with five sitting members total and just one province, Nova Scotia, currently represented. Quebec alone has five Senate vacancies at the moment.
McPhedran had described the board as being effectively "dismantled," given its high number of vacancies.
Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick
