EDITORIAL: Picking the plums on his way out the door

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The recent appointment of two senators in Alberta was a slap in the face, not just to Premier Danielle Smith, but to the concept of an accountable and democratic Senate.

In an act of breathtaking arrogance, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau swept aside three elected Alberta senators-in-waiting.

One of them, Pam Davidson, wrote in the National Post that those appointments should be respected by the federal government.

“By electing senators, Alberta imbues its representatives with democratic legitimacy,” Davidson wrote on Aug. 31, just prior to the announcement of the two appointments by Trudeau.

“This contrasts with the current federal appointment process, which is sometimes perceived as opaque or influenced by partisan considerations,” Davidson wrote.

Alberta is the only province that has a process whereby senators are elected. The federal government didn’t acknowledge that process and pushed ahead with their own appointees, Daryl Fridhandler and Kristopher Wells.

Fridhandler has been an active Liberal Party supporter and fundraiser. He’s donated $80,000 to the Liberal Party from 2004-2023. As a corporate lawyer, he’s eminently qualified to be a senator. All the same, his appointment flies in the face of Trudeau’s pledge to appoint “independent” senators.

Wells is a prominent LGBTQ advocate who’s been highly critical of Smith’s policies on transgender children in schools. If Trudeau’s plan was to widen the chasm that already exists between Alberta and the federal government, he couldn’t have made a better choice.

By ignoring the three elected senators-in-waiting, Trudeau is sending a message: He doesn’t care about national unity or showing mutual respect for a government he doesn’t ideologically agree with.

Davidson applied twice through the “independent” process Trudeau put in place, but didn’t hear back. In 2021, she received more votes than any MP, MLA or mayor in Alberta history to become the first of three elected Senate nominees. That should count for something.

“Despite our province’s repeated democratic election of senators-in-waiting ready to represent Albertans’ interests, he (Trudeau) has chosen to appoint left wing partisans who will do whatever he and the Liberals order them to,” Smith said on X.

This smacks of a desperate PM. He knows his time is up, so he’s filling the plum posts on his way out. It’s time to reform the Senate – or scrap it.