The Liberal government’s representative in the Senate says Prime Minister Mark Carney isn’t planning on reversing the Chamber’s decade-old independence reforms, despite launching a new appointment process aimed at selecting senators that will help advance his policy agenda.

Sen. Pierre Moreau said Carney’s new “hybrid” process would continue to use an independent advisory board to select candidates, while protecting the prime minister’s “constitutional prerogative” to directly name senators, with a focus on the skills needed to meet this “very challenging time” in Canada’s history.

“I think it’s a good way of making sure that… the Senate represents Canada as it is right now,” he said in an interview on Monday.

Carney announced last week that he was changing the appointment process for senators, as he named the first picks to the Upper Chamber since taking over as prime minister in March 2025.

Conservative MP Richard Martel and Carney’s principal secretary Tom Pitfield were included in the first wave of appointments, alongside Rodney Ouellette of New Brunswick and Manitoba’s Geeta Tucker.

In announcing the appointments, the Prime Minister’s Office said the government is acting with “urgency and ambition to build a stronger, more independent, more resilient country.” This would require “strong, effective and focused representatives who can ensure Canada’s institutions are equipped to respond to the challenges of the country they serve.”

The PMO said Carney was modifying the existing criteria for Senate appointments by dropping the non-partisanship requirement and prioritizing candidates with “expertise in key Canadian strategic industries, regulatory frameworks, and emerging social and economic affairs.”

The office said removing the non-partisanship rule recognizes the “valuable contributions made by Canadians who have chosen to serve in elected office or in other partisan roles, including knowledge of the governing and legislative processes, which will contribute to a stronger, more effective Senate.”

For the past decade, Senate appointments were typically based on the recommendations of what the government called an independent advisory board. Most of these appointees came from non-political backgrounds.

Previous experience in partisan politics wasn’t disqualifying, but the process was seen as a break from the tradition of having prime ministers name party loyalists to the Senate.

Despite these changes, Moreau said Carney has no desire to return to the “duopoly” Senate that existed prior to the post-2015 election reforms that eliminated the government caucus. He said removing the non-partisanship rule was designed to allow Carney to appoint people with deep knowledge of Parliament.

“I don’t think that banning people from political background is something that is clever because you know the Senate is one of the House of the Canadian Parliament, and to have people with knowledge about how Parliament is working is something that is is an asset for the Senate,” Moreau said.

Carney’s office said the new advisory board that will be established in the coming days, and use a “merit-based criteria” to identify and candidates with “diverse experience and perspectives” and make recommendations to the prime minister.

Moreau said he expected the board to be announced in the “coming weeks” and it would be open to “all Canadians who want to apply to the Senate.”

Before the 2015 election, the Senate largely mirrored the House of Commons. As prime ministers appoint senators, most either belonged to the Conservatives or the Liberals. Whatever party was in power took over the government in the Senate, regardless of seat count. The other would form the opposition.

Justin Trudeau kicked off the Senate reforms in 2014 by disbanding the Liberal caucus in the Upper Chamber. After winning office in 2015, he began appointing senators through an independent advisory board. The senators were named as independents, but were free to caucus with whomever they chose.

The Independent Senators Group soon became the biggest group in the Senate, and the Conservatives took over as the opposition, while a government representative was appointed. That soon morphed into its own group, now totalling five members.

Since then, two other groups have formed — the Canadian Senators Group and Progressive Senate Group. These are unlike traditional caucuses in that no votes are whipped and members are free to vote their conscience.

This can make predicting the results of votes challenging for a government, and the Liberals under Carney have bristled at the Senate’s decision-making over the past few months.

As iPolitics first reported, the government objected to the Senate’s unsuccessful push to delay changes to the rules regulating political parties that were supported by the Liberals, Conservatives and New Democrats. Liberal sources also expressed frustration at Senate delays in passing legislation overhauling bail laws backed by the premiers and police chiefs.

But since the Liberals moved to a majority in April, the Senate has passed a flurry of bills, as the House picked up the pace before the start of the summer recess.

Moreau credited the success in passing legislation to his larger GRO team and cooperation with the other groups in the Senate, singling out Conservative leader Leo Housakos as a “very good collaborator.”

“Basically, I’d say that the secret sauce is discuss openly. Don’t hide things. Tell the leaders — who are brilliant [people] — what you want to accomplish, and most of the time you will reach an agreement,” he said, noting the need to keep up with the surge in legislation from the House.

“We were dealing for the first time for a very very long time with a majority government, and the pace of the bills that came through the Senate was was more rapid than than it was in the past years.”

Moreau said he meets every Monday with the other leaders to discuss the agenda and that’s typically when he’s told about plans for amendments to legislation or requests for more time for committee work.

It was during one of his meetings with the other groups that Moreau said he successfully proposed a motion to complete review of several government bills that would allow the Senate to rise earlier than originally scheduled. The motion was eventually backed by the Senate.

Since the start of Parliament, the Senate has studied 26 bills and hosted 102 committee meetings and 981 witnesses on government business. Moreau said he’s personally answered 992 questions during Senate question period, while 14 ministers have also appeared to field questions.

For Moreau, his work is about balancing the Senate’s historic role as a “sober second thought” with the need for “efficiency at the same time.”

And so far, he said his work is getting rave reviews from Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon.

“I have a very close relationship with Steven MacKinnon… and we work very well together. And I guess that if you ask a question to to Steven, he will answer that he’s quite pleased with the [Senate’s pace]. As a matter of fact, he used the word miracle, because it’s an independent Senate,” Moreau said.

“I’m not able to whip votes in the Senate. I enjoy doing it honestly, and I think that the GRO with my four colleagues, we’ve [done a] pretty good job.”