Recently appointed Conservative Senator Larry Smith on Wednesday denied he’s using the Senate to boost his chances of becoming an MP, saying he has taken a “dramatic, catastrophic” pay cut to serve the public.

“You have to understand that I’ve worked very hard over my career and to do what I’m doing now I’m making a major, major concession in my lifestyle to even be a senator,” he told the CBC’s Evan Solomon on Power and Politics.

“I’m not trying to be arrogant, because I’m not, but I made a commitment to get myself into a higher form of public service than the philanthropic stuff I’ve done for the last 30 years. . .

“In simple terms, he added, “the money I was earning in my last profession to where I would be in this profession is what I would call a dramatic, catastrophic pay cut. And I have a family — I have obligations.”

Senators are paid an annual salary of $132,300.

Smith, 59, a former commissioner of the Canadian Football League and president of the Montreal Alouettes, was appointed to the Senate by Prime Minister Stephen Harper on Monday.

The next day he announced he would seek the Conservative party’s nomination in the next federal election for the Montreal-area riding of Lac-Saint-Louis, a longtime Liberal stronghold.

Smith, who played fullback for the Alouettes in the 70s and served two stints as team president, is well-known in the Montreal area and is believed to have been tapped by Harper to wrest the riding away from Liberals to establish more of a Conservative presence in Montreal as the party pushes for a majority government.

The Tories have not had an MP in Montreal since the end of the Mulroney era in 1993.

Smith said he will step down from the Senate when the election is called, but told the CBC that regardless of how long he serves, Canadians will “get their money’s worth out of me.

“I’m not going up there for a free ride.”

Smith appeared defensive when a comparison was made to Michael Fortier — “something I have been asked about 100 times in the last 48 hours.” Fortier was appointed by Harper to the Senate and immediately jettisoned into a cabinet post after the Conservatives were shut out of the Island of Montreal in the 2006 election.

Smith said he would never join cabinet without first being elected, saying it would be like a nonplayer entering a team’s locker room.

“You do not accept people who are not players into the room.”

Smith was also publisher of the Montreal Gazette from 2002 to 2004.