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Party fundraisers and defeated candidates dominated the list of 18 new Conservative senators announced yesterday by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, as one of the country's leading advocates of Senate reform unleashed the biggest single day of Senate appointments in Canadian history.

The Prime Minister argued he was left with no choice after his three-year campaign for Senate elections fell on deaf ears.

But critics accused Mr. Harper of hypocrisy in appointing a list of individuals known primarily for their service to the Conservative Party, including a former Quebec separatist. They also questioned the legitimacy of the appointments, given that Mr. Harper has suspended Parliament until late January in order to avoid defeat in the House of Commons.

Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff, who now holds the fate of the Conservative government in his hands, said the appointments demonstrate a Prime Minister who can't be trusted to keep his promises.

"It's another example of the inability of Harper to keep his word," Mr. Ignatieff said.

"He's made very, very clear commitments coming out of his experience with [the Reform Party] to Senate reform and he's abandoned them. I don't know what his Western support must be thinking today."

The new senators are all entering the Red Chamber as representatives of the Conservative Party, and the clear majority have had official ties to the party either as elected officials, fundraisers, organizers or advisers.

Some have been involved in provincial politics with parties on the conservative side of the political spectrum, and a number of them worked for or represented the Canadian Alliance and the Progressive Conservative Party, the groups that merged to form the Conservative Party of Canada.

The new senators include:

two former Conservative and Progressive Conservative MPs (Fabian Manning of Newfoundland and Suzanne Fortin-Duplessis of Quebec);

two former Conservative candidates (Yonah Martin of British Columbia and John Wallace of New Brunswick);

two former advisers at the provincial and federal levels (Stephen Greene, onetime chief of staff to Preston Manning, and Fred Dickson, a former adviser to Nova Scotia premier John Buchanan);

six party officials, fundraisers, supporters and organizers (Michael MacDonald of Nova Scotia; Leo Housakos, Patrick Brazeau and Michel Rivard of Quebec; Nicole Eaton and Irving Gerstein of Ontario);

three former provincial elected officials (former Conservative MLA Percy Mockler in New Brunswick, former B.C. Liberal MLA Richard Neufeld and former Yukon Party member Dan Lang).

The remaining three are the most well-known and were not previously engaged in Conservative politics. They include career broadcaster Mike Duffy, who until last week hosted a daily hour-long political show called Mike Duffy Live; Former CTV broadcaster Pamela Wallin, who served last year on the independent panel of Canada's role in Afghanistan; and Olympic gold medalist skier Nancy Greene Raine.

Mr. Rivard joined the Quebec separatist movement in the 1960s and was elected to the National Assembly in 1994 as a member of the Parti Québécois. He lost in the 1998 election, and began working for the Canadian Alliance in 2000. He has acted as an organizer in eastern Quebec for the Conservative Party in the past two federal elections.

Mr. Harper did not appoint any Ontario MPPs, which would have opened up a riding for provincial Progressive Conservative Leader John Tory to run for a seat in Queen's Park.

The lack of "luminaries" on the Prime Minister's list was viewed as a good thing by one leading Senate reform advocate, because the appointments will not increase the legitimacy of the institution.

"The Prime Minister could have appointed a good group of more widely, well-known senators who would have brought some vitality to the Senate, but that would have gone against the grain of eventually trying to proceed to Senate reform," said Roger Gibbins of the Canada West Foundation. "He has not strengthened the role of an appointed Senate by bringing in a set of luminaries."

NDP MP David Christopherson was far less kind, saying he is enraged that Conservatives who could not win election now get to sit in Parliament until the age of 75 without ever knocking on another door.

"This is just an orgy of obscenity," he said, expressing hope that Governor-General Michaëlle Jean will refuse to make the appointments. "This business of stuffing the Senate possibly on his way out the door, it's obscene. It's the only word. It's just obscene."

With reports from Brian Laghi and Rhéal Seguin

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THE FULL LIST

NEWFOUNDLAND

Fabian Manning

NOVA SCOTIA

Fred Dickson

Stephen Greene

Michael MacDonald

PRINCE EDWARD ISLAND

Mike Duffy

NEW BRUNSWICK

Percy Mockler

John Wallace

QUEBEC

Patrick Brazeau

Michel Rivard

Leo Housakos

Suzanne Fortin-Duplessis

ONTARIO

Nicole Eaton

Irving Gerstein

SASKATCHEWAN

Pamela Wallin

BRITISH COLUMBIA

Nancy Greene

Richard Neufeld

Yonah Martin

YUKON

Dan Lang