This week, democratic institutions minister Karina Gould announced changes to the appointment process for new senators, intended to make it easier to apply for a Senate seat.  Those changes include creating a new year-round process so that Canadians can apply for a Senate seat at any time; that applications will be kept on file for two years, so that they can be considered at any point during that time; and adding the ability for organizations and individuals to nominate someone.

On the face of it, most of these are changes that are not bad ones.  It's probably a good idea that you're giving applicants the opportunity to apply in advance of upcoming vacancies, and it's probably not a bad idea to create a limited bank of potential candidates so that when future vacancies do happen, the system can be a bit more responsive and possibly even proactive when it comes to filling those seats in a more expeditious manner because let's face it, the process to date has been anything but expeditious.  The fact that we still have twelve vacancies left to fill, and that the process as it stands has only managed a handful of appointments over the past year is clearly an indication that this particular system is not working properly.

But as much as these changes may be necessary, they're not really addressing the fundamental problem with the way that this appointment process has been running, which is the fact that it still relies on people putting themselves forward, rather than the advisory board going out looking for candidates who are qualified, fit the needs of the Chamber at the time, and more importantly, are seeking out candidates who wouldn't normally consider themselves for such a position.  And that's one of the key factors that I keep going back to, and which Emmett Macfarlane, the University of Waterloo political science professor who was consulted on the design of this appointment process, had advocated at the time.  Relying on self-nomination is a poor way to run an appointment process for a position like the Senate, particularly because it's a body with institutional independence that makes it very hard to discipline or remove its members when they do wrong.  If you build your appointment process toward people who feel that they ought to be the Senate because they deserve it in other words, people who have an inflated sense of self rather than it being an honour that is bestowed upon them unexpectedly, I worry that you're attracting people more likely to feel entitled to their entitlements.  There are egos in the room, and certainly, we are starting to get hints of that entitlement with some of the newer appointees.

What would be a better way of going about it?  Well, for starters, the government should have gone with a process like Macfarlane had suggested, and which should more properly have been modelled on how the Vice-Regal Appointments Committee operated during the Harper years (which, probably not surprisingly, was disbanded by Trudeau despite it being a good process that worked extremely well).  Superficially it looks similar, with a federal component of three members and two ad-hoc members from each province or territory with an upcoming vacancy, and each would draw up a shortlist for the PM to choose from, but the most important difference was the fact that they went out into the community to find candidates, and to speak to community leaders about who would be a good recommendation.  It was not dependent on people submitting their resumes for consideration.  It was also far more proactive in terms of working toward upcoming vacancies.  This is really what Trudeau should have been looking to emulate when it came to looking for new senators (and what he should have kept in place for vice-regal appointments, a process which is once again a complete black box).

I should also note that an improvement to the process would have allowed for appointments to be made not only to the independent crossbenchers, but to allow for senators with partisan loyalties to be appointed in order to help maintain a balance within the chamber that is currently in danger of being lost entirely.  Currently the process asks for disclosure of past political activities but says that these will not disqualify applicants though given the number of times that they keep repeating that this is for a more independent Senate, there does seem to be an implication that this may indeed be something that would be screened out.  And it's too bad, because if we want the Senate to operate most effectively, we would have roughly equal numbers of Liberal, Conservative and Independent senators.  This can easily be accommodated by the kind of process that has been put into place (or better yet, like the way it should have been run).

Meanwhile, it will probably be some time before even this "improved" process can get underway because, well, there is nobody to advise on these appointments.  Currently, all of the advisory positions  both the two federal seats and the two seats for each province and territory are vacant.  The only person who is in this process remains the advisory board chair, Huguette Labelle.  Given the pace at which this government operates, it could be months before those advisory positions are filled and can start evaluating applications as they come in, which will slow down the deeded appointments even more.  The fact that there are still so many vacancies is not doing this government any favours when it comes to questions of their competence.

I would also add that I got a tip that Gould also sent a version of the press release to Liberal MPs with the additional line "I hope that as representatives of your communities, you will inform your constituents and stakeholders about these changes to the Senate appointments process."  For a process that is supposed to remain arm's length of the government and indeed of partisanship (as much as I may disagree with that) this is poor optics to say the least.  But there's that question of competence again…