Mr. Speaker, the Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments was established to build a more effective and less partisan Senate. Since 2016, 38 independent senators were appointed through this process.
It is important that Senate appointments best reflect all backgrounds and the diversity of Canadians. The independent advisory board has undertaken outreach with various organizations in order to ensure that a diverse slate of individuals, with a variety of backgrounds, skills, knowledge and experience were informed of the process to apply for an appointment. This list, which continues to expand with every applications review cycle, includes indigenous organizations; linguistic, minority and ethnic communities; provincial, territorial and municipal organizations; labour organizations; community-based service groups; arts councils; academia; provincial or territorial chambers of commerce; and many others.
The independent advisory board prepares a report to the Prime Minister at the end of each cycle, which includes data on the outreach undertaken, applications received, costs incurred and the recommendation process. This report is made available on the independent advisory board’s website. The full list of organizations that received an email from the independent advisory board’s outreach during the winter 2017 cycle can be found on its website at: www.canada.ca/en/campaign/independent-advisory-board-for-senate-appointments/report-process-december-2016-june-2017.html#annF.