Article content

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a self-styled “grandson of British Columbia,” has hurt the province with a Senate reform initiative that appears to have empowered the unelected upper chamber, say experts.

Trudeau, in B.C. later this month as part of his town hall-style initiative of public outreach, has rejected calls to either abolish the $100 million-a-year institution or force its members to run in elections.

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or Justin Trudeau's Senate reform 'dangerous' for B.C.: experts Back to video

Instead, he has kicked Liberal senators out of his caucus and is only appointing members who are not aligned with any political parties.

As a result, 42 of the 102 members (there are three vacancies) are listed as “non-affiliated,” and another 20 identify themselves as Liberals even though Trudeau banished senators from his weekly opposition meetings in 2014 in response to the Senate expenses scandal.

That independence from party discipline has resulted in apparent growing assertiveness. The Senate last year temporarily blocked the government’s assisted death bill, and more recently forced Finance Minister Bill Morneau to remove a consumer-protection component of his budget-implementation bill.