QUESTION PERIOD — Prime Minister’s Office
Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments
September 26, 2024
Senator Gold, yesterday in Question Period, you stated that the Trudeau government’s Senate appointments advisory panel for Saskatchewan is composed of members appointed by that province in addition to those nominated by the federal government. I have raised many times before, both with Senator Harder and you as government leader, that several provinces do not appoint members to these boards. I know for a fact that the Government of Saskatchewan has never provided names to fill these boards, so the Trudeau Prime Minister’s Office, or PMO, chooses all the advisory panellists and the senators. Nothing about that is independent; all roads lead to the PMO.
Of course, this is why the Advisory Board for Senate Appointments is filled with major Liberal donors, the Trudeau Foundation alumni and former Liberal ministers and their staff — the same “independent” ranks from which Prime Minister Trudeau draws his independent senators. The Liberal Party database in the PMO is working overtime.
Senator Gold, how can you claim this is independent when the process and the results show anything but?
How unfortunate it is, indeed, that the people of Saskatchewan have a government — accepting your facts as stated, and if I misspoke yesterday, I stand corrected. How unfortunate it is that your province and perhaps others have chosen to neglect the opportunity they had to have people participate in the vetting of applicants to this place. The people of Canada deserve and have received a Senate that is less partisan and more independent of political control than ever before in its history. Interruptions and laughter notwithstanding, those are the facts. And the fact is also that the provinces have an opportunity to participate. If they don’t, they are betraying the interests of their citizens.
I asked you in May why the Senate appointments advisory board chair and Trudeau Foundation alum Huguette Labelle had not posted a report for 15 months, even though she is mandated to report after each round of Senate appointments, and 15 new senators had been appointed. Prime Minister Trudeau has since appointed seven more senators. There have been 22 appointments in 18 months and still no report, yet the appointments keep coming, and Ms. Labelle continues to collect $650 a day for her work. Where is the accountability?
My understanding is that there is a report in progress. I think one of the things that I will take away with me when I leave this place sometime next year will be the long list of occasions when you have impugned the integrity and the good faith of the public servants who serve this country so well. This is shameful.
