Prime minister unveils 2 Senate appointments for Alberta, including prominent Liberal donor

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

In a news release on 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."

"[I'm] gobsmacked, excited, delighted, bursting," Fridhandler said in an interview with CBC News, when asked how he felt about his appointment.

"I hope that I can be a bridge of good discourse between Alberta and the central government, an ambassador of the Senate to Alberta."

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

He said he hopes he can be an ambassador and educator about federalism.

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

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According to Elections Canada's publicly available political contributions database, Fridhandler has made nearly $80,000 in monetary contributions to the Liberal Party of Canada from 2004 to 2023. The records indicate he donated $1,200 to Trudeau's 2013 leadership campaign.

However, those figures include data originally submitted to Elections Canada. Another database, which includes corrected or revised returns submitted by the agent to Elections Canada, shows the total contributions were closer to $30,000 over that time period.

CBC News has reached out to Elections Canada for clarification on the two data sets.

In a statement to CBC News, Fridhandler said while he generally gives the maximum contribution permitted by law to the federal Liberals, he has also donated to the federal Green Party — of which he says leader Elizabeth May is a former law school classmate.

Provincially, he said he has given to the Liberal Party, Alberta Party, Progressive Conservative Party and New Democratic Party in Alberta.

"I also volunteer my time to parties and candidates, as well as many other good causes in my community," Fridhandler said.

Kristopher Wells's biography describes him as "an educator and a champion for the 2SLGBTQ+ 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 the website for MacEwan University in Edmonton, where Wells is an associate professor.

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

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

Alberta premier slams appointments, calls for reform

Back in 2021, Alberta held a "Senate election," reviving a practice that took place in the province between 1989 and 2012. In that span, 10 senators were elected, but only half of them were actually 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 2016 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 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 on X, formerly Twitter. "The Senate continues to lose credibility as an institution and needs to be entirely reformed."

In his interview with CBC News, Fridhandler said he thinks Smith should be more civil.

"It's not about cheap shots like that; it's about building bridges. So I look forward to talking to her, and maybe behind the scenes she can be a little bit more civil," he said. "She knows me better than that."