Prime minister announces two Senate appointments for Alberta

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has announced two Senate appointments for Alberta.

In a press release Saturday, the Prime Minister’s Office said Governor General Mary Simon has appointed Daryl Fridhandler and Kristopher Wells to the Red Chamber, as the Senate is sometimes called.

According to biographies accompanying the announcement, “Fridhandler is a corporate lawyer, arbitrator, mediator, and businessman with over 40 years of legal experience.”

Fridhandler was called to the Alberta Bar in 1984 and is on the board of directors of the Enmax, an electricity provider.

He has been an active supporter of the federal Liberal party over his career, serving as the party’s election co-chair in Alberta between 2004 and 2009 — according to his biography page on the site of law firm Burnet, Duckworth & Palmer LLP, where he has been a partner since 1990.

Wells’s biography describes him as “an educator and a champion for the 2SLGBTQI+ community who has used research and advocacy to help advance diversity, equity, and human rights in Alberta and across the country.”

He is the editor-in-chief of Journal of LGBT Youth, which is the “world’s leading research publication on 2SLGBTQ+ youth,” according to his biography on MacEwan University’s website, where Wells is an associate professor.

He has also helped with the creation of the PrideTape initiative, which several National Hockey League players have adopted in recent years.

With the latest appointments, there remains six vacancies in the Senate: two seats for British Columbia and Quebec, respectively, and one seat each for Ontario and Nunavut.

Alberta premier slams appointments, calls for senate reform

Back in 2021, Alberta held a so-called “senate election,” reviving a practice — as the only province practicing it — the province once held between 1989 and 2012. In that span, 10 senators were elected, half of which were appointed, and all by conservative prime ministers.

The 2021 Senate election was non-binding, as senate appointments are made by the Governor General, on the recommendation of the Prime Minister, who in turn receives recommendations from an independent advisory board — a system the Trudeau government set up in 2014 after coming into power.

The board itself is made up of five members, including a federal chair, two other federal members and two ad hoc provincial members. In Alberta’s case, those are former journalist Linda Hughes and businesswoman Sheila Risbud.

Neither Fridhandler nor Wells were on the ballot for Alberta’s latest senate election, which was held in conjunction with municipal elections and a controversial referendum on equalization. More than 200,000 voters left their senate ballots blank.

Alberta Premier Danielle Smith criticized the federal senate appointments on X Saturday, saying Trudeau “blatantly disregarded” Albertans’ interests.

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

“The senate continues to lose credibility as an institution and needs to be entirely reformed.”