List of Current Canadian Senators

List Of Current Canadian Senators

This is a list of current members of the Senate of Canada (French: Le Sénat du Canada), the upper house of the Canadian Parliament. Unlike the Members of Parliament in the House of Commons, the 105 senators are appointed by the Governor General on the advice of the prime minister. Senators originally held their seats for life; however, under the British North America Act, 1965, members may not sit in the Senate after reaching the age of 75. Prime ministers normally choose members of their own parties to be senators, though they sometimes nominate independents or members of opposing parties.

Seats are allocated on a regional basis, each of the four major regions receives 24 seats, and the remainder of the available seats being assigned to smaller regions. The four major regions are Ontario, Quebec, the Maritime provinces (New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island), and the Western provinces (Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba and Saskatchewan). The seats for Newfoundland and Labrador, the Northwest Territories, Yukon, and Nunavut are assigned apart from these regional divisions. The province of Quebec has 24 Senate divisions that are constitutionally mandated. In all other provinces, a Senate division is strictly an optional designation of the senator's own choosing, and has no real constitutional or legal standing. A senator who does not choose a special senate division is considered a senator for the province at large. The distribution of seats has been criticized for not being proportional per region. For example, Ontario has 40 percent of Canada's population but only 24 seats, while the smaller Atlantic provinces have a combined 30, and British Columbia, the third most populous province, only has six seats.

Senate reform is a recurring issue in Canadian politics. One of the systems most often proposed is the Triple-E Senate (Triple-E stands for equal, elected, and effective), which would re-align the seats, make senators elected, and give them more powers. Alberta is the only province that holds Senate nominee elections, although Saskatchewan plans to hold their own as well. Prime Minister Stephen Harper is an advocate of an elected Senate, and originally said that he would not appoint any new senators until there is reform. In his first two years as prime minister, he appointed two. One of his appointments was Bert Brown, who was one of Alberta's elected nominees and is the second unofficially elected senator in Canadian history after Stan Waters in 1990.

Currently, there are 101 senators and four vacancies. There are 37 women in the Senate. The Conservative Party currently holds 60 seats, a majority. Active senators have been appointed on the advice of five different prime ministers: Harper, Paul Martin, Chrétien, Brian Mulroney and Pierre Trudeau. Marjory LeBreton is the Leader of the Government in the Senate, and Jim Cowan is the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate. Claude Carignan is the Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate, and Claudette Tardif is the Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate. Elizabeth Marshall is Government Whip, and Jim Munson is Opposition Whip. Anne Cools is the longest-serving current senator; she was appointed on the advice of Pierre Trudeau in 1984.