9 mai 2017- Times & Transcript

Outgoing senator argues successor should also come from Saint John

ADAM HURAS LEGISLATURE BUREAU

Sen. John Wallace is pictured in the Senate chamber earlier this year.

PHOTO: ADAM HURAS/LEGISLATURE BUREAU

OTTAWA • Outgoing senator John Wallace says his replacement should come from Saint John.

And he hopes those closest to Prime Minister are advocating for it.

But a look at the current regional representation of senators in the upper chamber suggests it may be Fredericton’s turn.

Or with a new criteria being applied to those appointed to seats in the Senate, exactly where the province’s next senator may come from might not matter as much.

“I would certainly hope that the next senator would come from Saint John,” Wallace said in an interview with the Telegraph-Journal. 9 mai 2017- Times & Transcript

Wallace announced last December that he intended to resign from the Senate at the end of January, believing that eight years in the upper chamber should be the limit to how long any member should serve.

The federal government then posted Wallace’s job a few days before Christmas, giving New Brunswickers until Jan. 25 to apply.

Three and a half months later, the seat remains vacant.

“The important thing is that our province has a full complement of senators and that all 10 positions are filled for the sake of our province,” Wallace said. “But within the province we need strong voices and we need strong voices for Saint John and southern New Brunswick.

“There are strong voices for all other areas of the province so I would hope that the prime minister would choose someone from this area. I would hope that those that are able to influence him to think that way would do all they could.”

Regional representation

New Brunswick’s nine current senators bring representation from nearly all corners of the province.

Although, there currently isn’t a senator from Fredericton or the province’s southwest.

There’s from Edmundston, from Saint-Léonard, Paul McIntyre from Charlo, near Dalhousie, and René Cormier who lives in lives in Caraquet, all from the province’s north.

From western New Brunswick there’s Sen. from Tobique First Nation.

In the east, there’s Rose-May Poirier from Saint-Louis de Kent.

In southeastern New Brunswick there’s from Moncton and Carolyn Stewart-Olsen from Sackville who currently lives in Cape Spear, east of Port Elgin. 9 mai 2017- Times & Transcript

Sen.Joseph Day is from Hampton,now the lone representative of the province’s south.

There isn’t a senator from the province’s capital city.

The last Fredericton senator was Senate Speaker Noël Kinsella, who reached mandatory retirement age in 2014.

It remains to be seen how much of a factor regional representation plays into Senate appointments under a new system of selecting members of the upper chamber.

A website listing the opening states that “priority consideration” is given to indigenous peoples and linguistic,minority and ethnic communities.

It adds that Ottawa is seeking people with “outstanding personal qualities” that demonstrate an ability to make an effective and significant contribution.

Fluency in both official languages is also considered an asset.

Waiting game

Last November, New Brunswick women’s issues expert Nancy Hart-ling, and René Cormier, president of the Société Nationale de l’Acadie, were the first two from the province appointed by Trudeau under a new non-partisan process.

The federal government reported that a total of 127 New Brunswickers applied for two vacant spots up for grabs in the Senate last year.

Like last time,an independent advisory board for Senate appointments was accepting applications for the New Brunswick vacancy.

Donald Savoie, Canada Research Chair in Public Administration and Governance at Université de Moncton, a leading expert on public policy,was appointed to that arm’s-length advisory board for senate appointments, charged with sifting through applications to fill the province’s vacancies in the upper chamber.

Reached by the Telegraph-Journal, Savoie declined to say if a short list of names to fill Wallace’s spot had made it to the prime minister’s desk. 9 mai 2017- Times & Transcript

A website set up by the federal government to receive applications for vacant Senate seats states that“the prime minister will make an announcement once he has made his selections.”

“The exact timing is unknown,”it adds.

The prime minister’s office has not commented further.

“It’s taking a while,”Wallace said.“They should have it down to a shortlist by now.

“I’m anxious to see the prime minister make that appointment.

“It doesn’t surprise me that it didn’t happen immediately; when you look at the last round of appointments it took a little bit of time.”

He added:“But I would sure hope that with the current session ending the end of June that it would happen this month so that the new person has a chance to get a feeling for it.

“I think it’s important to have another representative from our province in place so I’m anxious to see that filled as soon as possible.”

The Senate is currently made up of 42 independent members, 39 Conservative senators and 18 independent Liberals. There are six vacancies, one each in New Brunswick, Manitoba, Ontario and Saskatchewan, and two in .

Applicants to the senate must be between 30 and 75 years of age, own property in the province worth at least $4,000, be a resident of the province and be a Canadian citizen.

A Canadian senator’s salary is currently $147,700 - plus expenses.