With yesterday's 9 appointments, this is how the 105 seats are divided:
CONSERVATIVES 46 SEATS, LIBERALS 53, INDEPENDENTS 6
If the PM is still in office next year, he can replace them with 4 Conservatives, ushering in a new balance of power.
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Prime Minister Stephen Harper has laid out his plan to draw even with the Liberals in the Senate.
With his goal the magic number of 50 Conservatives in the Red Chamber, he stacked nine vacancies with partisan nominations yesterday.
Four opposition senators will reach the mandatory retirement age of 75 by January. Assuming that the Tories are still in power then, appointing their replacements would give each of the two dominant parties the same number of seats. The new standings would help the Conservatives ease their agenda through Parliament. They spent their first years in power struggling with as few as 20 seats.
"If Senate vacancies are to be filled, they should be filled with individuals who support the legislative agenda of our democratically elected government, including Senate reform and real action against gang- and drug-related crime," Mr. Harper said in a statement.
At an event in Quebec City, the Prime Minister said he had to nominate unelected Conservative supporters to the Senate to ensure that his government, which won a minority last year, gets its legislation approved.
"It's unacceptable for senators [appointed] by a previous government to block the will of the people," he said.
The Liberal Party has 53 seats in the 105-seat Red Chamber, while the Conservative Party has 46. The other six seats are held by independents and Progressive Conservatives, who do not necessarily vote with or against the government. Three Liberals and one independent are due to resign in coming months.
Yesterday's surprise nomination of former Montreal Canadiens coach Jacques Demers was not enough to stop a wave of criticism over the second round of largely partisan appointments to the Upper Chamber in less than a year.
Former St-Eustache mayor Claude Carignan, a defeated Conservative candidate in the last general election, was appointed as a Senator from Quebec.
He will be joined by Conservative organizer Doug Finley and Mr. Harper's long-time communications aide, Carolyn Stewart-Olsen.
Other Conservative nominees are party president Don Plett and Judith Seidman, a Quebec representative on the Conservative Party's National Council.
The new senators also include Dennis Patterson, a former premier of the Northwest Territories, journalist Linda Frum Sokolowski, and Kelvin Ogilvie, the former president of Acadia University.
Mr. Demers, who revealed in 2005 that he was functionally illiterate when he worked as an National Hockey League coach and general manager, was a well-known face among the new crop of senators. He said he will continue working as a hockey analyst and put his mind to his new job.
"I've just been named a senator here, and I'm going to have to start following [federal politics]," he said in an interview.
The Liberals, who've long engaged in partisan stacking of the Upper Chamber, highlighted the contradiction between the nominations and Mr. Harper's past criticisms.
Calling it "Senate Harpocrisy," the Liberals pointed out that in 2004, Mr. Harper dismissed the Senate as a "dumping ground for the favoured cronies of the prime minister."
The New Democratic Party called the appointments an odious waste of money, costing $3-million a year in a time of economic crisis.
"[Mr. Finley] and the others have never been elected by anyone and will now have lawmaking power," NDP Leader Jack Layton said. "Yet citizens will never have a say in whether they should be making decisions on our behalf or living comfortably on the taxpayers' dime."
