(OTTAWA) Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Wednesday that two new independent senators from the Atlantic provinces will join the upper house.
Jane MacAdam, a former Auditor General of Prince Edward Island with over 40 years of experience in this field, will represent that province in the Senate, along with three other colleagues.
Businesswoman Iris Petten, whose background is in the fishing industry, will be one of six senators representing Newfoundland and Labrador in the upper house. Mme Petten notably served as chair of Memorial University’s board of trustees for three terms, from 2013 to 2022.
The appointment of these two women had been recommended by the Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments, an independent merit-based process that Mr. Trudeau had put in place at the start of his first term in 2015.
A total of 68 people have now been appointed to the Senate through this process. Fourteen other seats, out of 105, remain vacant in the Senate – including one in Quebec, two in Ontario and three in New Brunswick.