Two Conservative MPs are taking issue with the Prime Minister’s new senate appointments, saying the new selection process was too secretive.

In a joint statement, Conservative democratic institutions critics Scott Reid and Blake Richards said the new process “does nothing to make the selection of senators more transparent or more democratic.”

“Regardless of the merits of those appointed, the new senators were still appointed from secret short lists, created by an unelected, unaccountable board that reports to the Prime Minister himself,” it reads.

“Canadians overwhelmingly favour senate elections or abolition, and deserve more than fresh paint on a tired, undemocratic process.”

They also took issue with the number of Senate appointees in the first phase of the new process — that five appointments were originally promised but seven were delivered Friday.

“The Prime Minister, on a whim, still chooses the names, the number, and the timing of senate appointments,” the statement reads.

A government release from February stated it aimed to have five vacancies filled early on in 2016, followed by a second “permanent process” of appointment nominations to fill the remaining vacancies.

Friday morning the Prime Minister announced in a statement he will recommend seven new appointments to the Red Chamber, including Truth and Reconciliation commission Justice Murray Sinclair, Paralympian Chantal Petitclerc, former Ontario NDP Cabinet Minister Frances Lankin and the former public servant Peter Harder, who led the charge for the new Liberal government’s transition team when they came to power in the fall.

A PMO release said that over the past three months, the government’s new independent advisory board for senate appointments, which it calls a non-partisan body, undertook “broad consultations in Manitoba, Ontario, and Quebec – and provided the Prime Minister with a number of non-binding recommendations.”

“From that pool of candidates, the Prime Minister selected the seven new Senators he will recommend to the Governor General,” it read.

Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch and Visiting Professor at the University of Ottawa also took aim at the appointments process, saying the other federal party leaders should be involved in approving at least a majority of the Senate appointment advisory board members.

“As it is currently set up, the Liberals’ new Senate appointment advisory board is a partisan façade that results in partisan Senate appointments,” he said.

Senate Opposition Leader Claude Carignan welcomed the new appointees in a statement, but dismissed the appointment process as “substantially no different than in the past.”

“I note that this process yielded the same type of appointments as it has previously – former judges, provincial ministers, journalists, Olympians – have all been appointed to the Senate before.”

Minister for Democratic Institutions Maryam Monsef tweeted Friday that the new senators will help remake the upper chamber into a less partisan and more independent place.

Get to know new independent Senators who will help transform the #SenCA into less partisan & more ind. inst https://t.co/UxWGZ0ZQbz #cdnpoli — Maryam Monsef (@MaryamMonsef) March 18, 2016

The new senators, who will sit as independents, reduce the Conservative-dominated Senate from a majority to a thin plurality of seats. The appointments leave 17 vacancies. Meanwhile, another two Senators – one Senate Liberal and another independent – are scheduled to retire this year.