Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s weekend appointment of two Liberal Party donors as Alberta senators was denounced by the Government of Alberta. It marks the 35th anniversary of Alberta holding Canada’s first Senate election, according to Blacklock’s Reporter. Premier Danielle Smith said Trudeau’s administration “blatantly disregarded” Alberta’s interests.Daryl Fridhandler, partner with Burnet, Duckworth & Palmer LLP of Calgary, was named to the Senate over the long weekend. Fridhandler is a longtime Liberal Party organizer with donations totaling $119,959 to federal and provincial campaigns.Fridhandler co-chaired campaigns for former leaders Paul Martin and Michael Ignatieff. The Prime Minister’s Office called him a “businessman with over 40 years of legal experience” but omitted mention of his cash contributions.Kristopher Wells of Edmonton, former director of the University of Alberta’s Institute for Sexual Minority Matters, was also appointed. Wells’ contributions to the Liberal Party totaled $200, according to Elections Canada filings.Wells has been an outspoken critic of the Conservative Party. In a February 21 interview with the Globe & Mail he called Opposition Leader Pierre Poilievre “transphobic,” and in 2023 told Global News it was “unconscionable” that Poilievre was photographed alongside a Calgary Stampede well-wisher wearing a “Straight Pride” T-shirt.“I think it’s very concerning,” said Wells. “It’s disturbing. What you’re seeing here is people trying to legitimize these views as though they were dominant views in society.”"People will look at any opportunity to share this kind of hateful narrative and feel that’s okay and that’s appropriate, even to be wearing something like that in public,” said Wells.The Saturday appointments came 35 years after Alberta held the first Senate election in Canadian history. “Albertans’ interests have once again been blatantly disregarded,” Smith said in a statement.“Despite our province’s repeated democratic election of senators in waiting ready to represent Albertans’ interests, the prime minister has chosen to appoint left wing partisans who will do whatever he and the Liberals order them to.”“The Senate continues to lose credibility as an institution and needs to be entirely reformed.”The landmark 1989 Senate election was won by retired Lt.-Gen. Stan Waters, a Reform Party candidate elected by a 119,000-vote margin. Waters was sworn into office in 1990. He died fifteen months later at 71.Then-Prime Minister Stephen Harper in 2011 introduced Bill C-7 the Senate Reform Act that promoted election of senators to fixed nine-year term limits. The Supreme Court of Canada in a unanimous 2014 ruling struck down the Act as unconstitutional. “Provinces must have a say,” wrote the Court.“The Senate is one of Canada’s foundational political institutions. It lies at the heart of the agreements that gave birth to the Canadian federation. Despite ongoing criticism and failed attempts at reform the Senate has remained largely unchanged since its creation.”
