NDP critic on Democratic Reform, Don Davies, issued the following reaction:

The Senate is an archaic institution that violates the most basic principles of democratic government.

The idea that a Prime Minister can appoint legislators, unaccountable to any voters and often sitting for decades, with similar power to the House of Commons, is impossible to justify in a modern democratic nation.

The Senate has historically been used as a place of political reward and patronage, appointing people not on merit but on political loyalty and fundraising prowess.

As limited as the Trudeau government’s “reforms” to the Senate were, they at least tried to introduce some modicum of capability and independence into the Chamber.

Now we see the Carney government reversing even those weak measures.

Returning to the old autocratic practice of appointing political insiders and donors is not Senate “modernization”.

It is a reversion to the anti-democratic, pork-barrel politics that have no place in a democratic Canada in the 21st century.