Independents’ control over Senate imminent with PM poised to fill 21 vacancies
OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has named nine new, non-partisan senators, bringing him within reach of his goal to transform the discredited Senate into a more reputable, independent chamber of sober second thought.
The five women and four men hail from a wide variety of backgrounds, from an art historian to a renowned human rights lawyer to a conservationist. All will sit as independents in the Senate.
They are the first senators to be chosen under an arm’s-length process that saw more than 2,700 people apply to fill the 21 vacancies in the 105-seat upper house.
Trudeau is poised to announce two more batches of appointments within days, filling the remaining 12 empty seats — six from Quebec, six from Ontario — and, for the first time, putting senators with no partisan affiliation in the driver’s seat.