Opposition parties slam Trudeau cabinet's future appointments to government agencies

Prime Minister Mark Carney should review a series of future appointments made by his predecessor's government and shouldn't automatically accept them, Green Party Co-Leader Elizabeth May said Friday.

In an interview with CBC News, May said appointments have to be filled but it was "a huge mistake" to make so many of those appointments in the final days of Justin Trudeau's government. 

"Any last-minute appointments of people who, I'm pretty sure, are likely to be Liberals, raises the worst possible political optics and it reinforces the idea that Trudeau was aiding and abetting his cronies throughout."

May likened the Trudeau government's future appointments to those made by Pierre Trudeau in 1984, which hurt Liberal Leader John Turner in the election campaign that swept Progressive Conservative Leader Brian Mulroney to power.

"Carney's going to be hoist with that petard for sure. Because why do you accept a whole whack of appointments, for appointments that haven't terminated yet, and they are reappointed before their best-before date has arrived?" said May.

"That's going to stink to high heaven for most voters."

May's comments come after CBC News revealed that Trudeau's government stacked government agencies and Crown corporations with dozens of future appointments and early appointment renewals, many of which will only go into effect weeks and months after the upcoming election.

An analysis of order-in-council appointments made since Jan. 6, when Trudeau announced he would step down as prime minister, found 88 future appointments, some scheduled to go into effect as late as November.

Some of the future appointments are for part-time positions that pay modest per diems but others are for senior executives or advisers making more than $200,000 a year.

While some of those benefiting from the future appointments have ties to the Liberal Party, many others do not.

The Prime Minister's Office has yet to respond to questions from CBC News about the appointments.

May said Carney should act quickly to deal with the future appointments before they become fodder to attack him during an election debate.

"Carney would be smart to get out ahead of it and say that his cabinet is going to meet and review all of them and they are not automatic," she said.

NDP MP Niki Ashton was also critical of the future appointments made by the outgoing Trudeau government.

"I think Canadians would be shocked to hear that the Liberals who decried the very same thing from Harper, spent their last hours in Parliament looking out for their friends — in fact making more appointments than Harper," Ashton told reporters.

Ashton said the NDP could ask Carney to "roll back" some of the appointments that haven't started yet. She said the government's priority should be on the economy and defending Canadians.

"This isn't the time for partisan games," said Ashton. "This is the time for all hands to be on deck and spend all of the energy we have defending Canadian workers and Canadian communities under threat by Donald Trump and his economic war on our country."

Thursday, Conservative Opposition House leader Andrew Scheer criticized the future appointments, accusing Trudeau's government of helping Liberal insider friends with "plush posts."

His statement was silent, though, on the future appointments made in the dying days of the Harper government.