New senators from Ontario include police leader, prisoner advocate

CTV News Channel: Newly-appointed senator Newly-appointed senator Kimberly Pate recalls getting the call from Prime Minister Trudeau about her appointment.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is set to name six new senators from Ontario, including an advocate for women in prison and the first female commissioner of the Ontario Provincial Police, CTV News has learned.

This is Trudeau's second set of Senate appointments since last week, with one more still to come. Trudeau will also name six senators from Quebec in the coming days.

The new senators come from a variety of backgrounds, including policing, banking and the public service.

The six new senators are:

Gwenneth Boniface, a police leader, lawyer and educator who is the first female inspector in the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP), the first woman appointed as commissioner of the OPP, and the first female president of the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police. Boniface also worked to repair relationships with First Nations communities and promoted Aboriginal policing.

Tony Dean, a professor at the School of Public Policy and Governance at the University of Toronto since 2009 and former secretary to cabinet in Ontario, former head of Ontario's public service and clerk of the executive council. Dean created the "Service Ontario" centres and worked to repair the relationships between the government, teachers' federations and school boards after the Ontario Liberals passed a law in 2012 that let them impose labour agreements on teachers.

Sarabjit (Sabi) Marwah, a former vice chairman and chief operating officer of Scotiabank. He also served on the boards of the C.D. Howe Institute, the Toronto International Film Festival and the Hospital for Sick Children. He is also a founding member of the Sikh Foundation of Canada and has an honorary doctorate from Ryerson University for his work in advancing social inclusion in business.

Lucie Moncion, president and CEO of the Alliance des caisses populaires de l'Ontario, a network of credit unions serving Francophone communities in Ontario. In that role, Moncion nearly tripled the Alliance's assets to $1.4 billion. Moncion became president and chair of the board of Cooperatives and Mutuals Canada in 2016.

Kimberly Pate, executive director of the Canadian Association of Elizabeth Fry Societies since 1992 and a human rights expert. Pate works to improve conditions for women in prison. She's also an assistant professor at the University of Ottawa's Faculty of Law and sits on several advisory boards, including the National Women's Legal Mentoring Program.

Howard Wetston, a lawyer with Goodmans LLP and an adjunct professor at the University of Toronto. Wetston has led the Ontario Securities Commission, the Ontario Energy Board and the Competition Bureau, and served as a vice-chair of the International Organization of Securities Commissions. He is also a former Federal Court judge.

Last week, Trudeau named nine senators to fill vacancies in British Columbia, Manitoba and Atlantic Canada. They are among the first senators to be named following the advisory process Trudeau introduced earlier this year. More than 2,700 people applied through a process that saw an advisory board recommend five people for each of 21 vacancies.

That means that in his first year in office, Trudeau will have named more than 20 per cent of senators in the 105-seat chamber. Amid the Senate spending scandal and following a Supreme Court decision that required provincial sign-off on major Senate reforms, former prime minister Stephen Harper refused to fill the vacancies that accumulated in his last two years in office.

But it's not clear yet how Trudeau’s appointments will affect his ability to get legislation through the Senate. The parliamentarians named through the new process are to sit as independents along with seven other senators Trudeau named last spring and an existing group of independents.

A separate group of senators identify as Senate Liberals after he kicked them out of his caucus in 2014. The independents, also known as non-affiliated, don't have a leader but elected Senator Elaine McCoy to be their facilitator. Trudeau appointed Peter Harder to act as his liaison, in a position the Senate treats as a government leader in the Senate.

Right now, the Senate Liberals and the Conservatives control most of the committee seats, even though the independents outnumber the Liberals and will soon outnumber the Conservatives.

CORRECTION: This story has been changed to correct Peter Harder's role and add Elaine McCoy's position.