Charles Adler at a press conference on a baseball field in Winnipeg, on Sept. 15, 2010.JOHN WOODS/The Canadian Press
Jaws dropped in Ottawa when then-Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper named long-time press-gallery gadfly Mike Duffy to the Senate in 2008. In the twilight of his journalistic career, the colourful Mr. Duffy was known for vehiculating conservative talking points. He was a “big name” in small-town Canada and popular among Conservative MPs.
Known for his folksy language and racy metaphors, Mr. Duffy became a much-sought-after guest speaker at Tory fundraisers. In his maiden speech in the Senate, he accused one Atlantic Canada premier of having “climbed into bed” with another. “And honourable senators know what a grotesque scene that is.”
That sure got hearts pumping in Parliament’s upper chamber.
Ultimately, however, Mr. Harper would regret his choice. Mr. Duffy became wrapped up in an expenses scandal that brought the Senate, already held in low regard by Canadians, into even deeper disrepute and contributed to the defeat of Mr. Harper’s Conservatives in 2015.
In opposition, Justin Trudeau seized on the scandal to promise a non-partisan process for naming senators and kicked sitting Liberal senators out of his party’s caucus. He promised merit-based Senate appointments, made on the advice of an independent advisory committee, to rehabilitate an institution mired in patronage and lethargy.
After almost nine years in power, Mr. Trudeau has now appointed more senators – 84 in all – than any prime minister except William Lyon Mackenzie King (103) and John A. Macdonald (92). He has even surpassed his father, Pierre Trudeau, who named 81 senators between 1968 and 1984.
There is much less to Mr. Trudeau’s Senate “reform” than meets the eye. The nominally “independent” senators Mr. Trudeau has appointed skew overwhelmingly progressive, given to small-l liberal causes and – increasingly – Liberal ones.
A recent CBC analysis found that eight of the last 12 senators named by Mr. Trudeau had donated to the Liberal Party or worked with either the federal Liberals or a provincial Liberal Party. That ratio is now up to nine of 14, with the appointments of former Saskatchewan Liberal candidate Tracy Muggli and broadcaster Charles Adler.
Despite Ms. Muggli’s partisan affiliations, it is Mr. Adler’s nomination that most undermines Mr. Trudeau’s claim to making only non-partisan, merit-based appointments. Ms. Muggli is a career social worker with a long history of community engagement. She ran in the 2015 and 2019 federal elections in a Saskatoon riding the Liberals had little chance of winning.
Mr. Adler’s appointment is of another nature altogether. For decades, he was a conservative radio talk show host whose schtick consisted of skewering left-leaning politicians and activists and, often, those who called into his show. He was so good at it that, when Quebecor launched a Canadian version of Fox News in 2011, it hired Mr. Adler as a marquee host on its Sun News Network. It shut down the network in 2015.
The same year, Mr. Adler repudiated Mr. Harper’s Conservatives over its promise to create a “barbaric cultural practices” hotline. Lately, he has become one of the current Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s fiercest critics. He accuses him of being a phony, which I suspect eats at the Tory Leader more than any Liberal barb.
“Pierre Poilievre always smirks after he feels he has buried the puck in the Liberal net. It’s the preen of the populist peacock,” Mr. Adler wrote in a 2023 Winnipeg Free Press column. “Ordinary Canadians, my people, the common people know that his connection to the common life is fictional.”
Mr. Adler has claimed that his break with the Conservatives stemmed from the party’s move further to the right under Mr. Harper and Mr. Poilievre. Yet, if anything, the insult-laden language used by Mr. Poilievre resembles, in tone and content, the discourse Mr. Adler long privileged on his radio shows. If he has any bone to pick with Mr. Poilievre, it might be that the Tory Leader has plagiarized some of his best material.
Hence, there is a mischievousness on Mr. Trudeau’s part in naming Mr. Adler to the Senate barely a year before the next federal election. It recalls, and not in a good way, Mr. Harper’s nomination of Mr. Duffy. Mr. Adler can likely be counted on to provoke the Conservative Leader more effectively than any Grit MP or cabinet minister.
Except that the Liberals are not known for their vetting rigour. (See: Birju Dattani’s resignation.) It is unlikely the Prime Minister’s Office reviewed everything Mr. Adler has said, written or tweeted during his long media career, which includes his 2013 reference to senators as ”whores” and his 1999 reference to Indigenous leaders as ”uncivilized boneheads.”
Manitoba chiefs call for PM to rescind Charles Adler’s appointment to Senate
Mr. Adler, who turns 70 on Sunday, has said he intends to advocate for an elected Senate during his five years as an appointed Senator with a base salary of $178,000. (Senators must by law retire at 75.) That’s rich, isn’t it? Nice work if you can get it.