Longtime broadcaster Adler named to Senate

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This article was published 17/08/2024 (415 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

Longtime broadcaster and Free Press columnist Charles Adler has been named to Canada’s Senate.

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced Saturday morning that Adler was one of two new independent senators appointed by Gov. Gen. Mary Simon.

“On the human emotional level, it takes your breath away,” said Adler, reached by phone from his Winnipeg residence on Saturday.

He’s known for a little over a week about the appointment but he had to keep it secret until now.

Adler will serve as a Manitoba senator, while health-care executive Tracy Muggli will serve as a Saskatchewan senator.

“The Senate of Canada will be stronger with its newest independent senators. Mr. Adler and Ms. Muggli will put their vast experience and knowledge to work for all Canadians in their new roles,” Trudeau said in the release announcing their appointments.

Adler, a son of Holocaust survivors, emigrated to Canada with his family from Hungary in 1957.

He said his late father, Mike Adler, who died in 2015 at age 92, “would be very moved.”

“Canada was always their promise land, that’s what my father called it,” he said. “It’s the land where they believed that all of those things — fascism, communism, genocide, all of those horrible things — won’t happen because my dad believed we have the rule of law that will prevent people who get power politically from overreaching.”

Adler’s career as a radio host, journalist and commentator has spanned more than five decades. The release praised his use of his platform “to champion human rights and Canadian democracy.”

While Alder has worked and lived across the country, including Montréal, Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto, Hamilton and London, Ont., he calls Winnipeg his “adopted hometown.”

But he’s acutely aware of the weight of his new responsibilities, he said. Senators are tasked with examining and revising legislation, investigating national issues and representing regional and minority interests.

The two new senators were recommended by the Independent Advisory Board for Senate Appointments, which uses non-partisan and merit-based criteria to identify candidates for the Senate.

There are now 84 independent members of Canada’s upper legislative chamber, with appointments made on the advice of Trudeau.

Adler, long considered a conservative commentator, finds some humour in his appointment.

“If someone had told me in the days (at CJOB) when I was doing my commentary on my monologues — some people would say my rants — that a Liberal prime minister one day will confer this sort of honour on you, I would think that they’re either insane or drinking,” he said with a laugh.

“I wouldn’t have even said the odds were one in a billion that that could happen.”

katrina.clarke@freepress.com