Prime Minister Stephen Harper is set to appoint five new senators, likely on Friday, and, when he does, his party will finally have more votes in the upper chamber than any other party.

Conservatives say the new balance of power in the upper chamber will clear the way for long-promised Senate reform.

"We won't have the majority but we'll have the plurality, but what we will not have is irresponsible representation of our legislation like we're getting right now," Senator Marjory LeBreton, leader of the government in the Senate, said recently.

Harper's critics, on the other hand, say the prime minister is diminishing the historical role of the Senate by making it an extension of his caucus.

"Harper thinks he can reform the Senate by stuffing it full of his cronies, which he now expects to mindlessly pass all of his bills," Liberal MP Wayne Easter said this week.

"He claims he wants a more independent Senate, yet he attacks the Liberals when our senators take independent initiatives."

Liberals say there is plenty of proof of the independence of their senators.

Liberal Senator Colin Kenny, they point out, leads a Senate committee on national security that has produced several reports during the past decade criticizing both Liberal and Conservative governments over their record of supporting the Canadian Armed Forces.

Most recently, legislation to boost consumer safety that was unanimously approved by MPs in the House of Commons — and backed by Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff — was held up by Liberal senators worried some aspects of the bill went too far.

The NDP argues the Senate should not be reformed but should be scrapped altogether.

"Stephen Harper attacked Mulroney and Chretien (on the Senate) but he's doing exactly what they did: rewarding his friends with your money," said NDP MP David Christopherson.

"He has appointed Conservative operatives like Carolyn Stewart-Olsen, Doug Finley and Don Plett or people like Mike Duffy, who can be counted on to recite the party line at fundraisers. It's the old politics done in the most brazen way possible."

Senators earn a base salary of $130,000 a year.

There is an irony to the appointments Harper has made that is not lost even on some of Harper's own advisers and supporters. As a young Reform party organizer and MP, Harper campaigned vigourously to make the Senate more independent of the prime minister. And yet, to create the Senate he wants, Harper now needs a Senate that will do precisely what he wants.

With the five members he is expected to appoint Friday, Harper — who once said he would never appoint senators — will have named 33 senators since taking office in 2006, giving the Conservatives a 51-49 advantage over the Liberals. (Five senators identify themselves as neither Liberal nor Conservative).

Montreal newspaper La Presse said this week that one of the new appointees will be Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu, a victims' rights advocate. In addition to filling a vacancy from Quebec, Harper must find two new senators from Ontario, and one each from New Brunswick and Newfoundland and Labrador.

Harper is scheduled to stop over in St. John's on Friday on his way home from the World Economic Forum in Switzerland.

Although Boisvenu has no previous ties to the Conservative party, many of Harper's previous appointees do.

In fact, 20 of the 33 appointees were failed Conservative candidates, former political staff to Harper or the party, or were members of the Conservative party or its predecessor parties, the Reform party, the Progressive Conservative party and the Canadian Alliance.

Others may not have had such a clear connection to the Conservative cause but were seen as sympathetic. Native leader Patrick Brazeau endorsed the Conservatives in 2006. Leo Housakos is a close friend of Harper's press secretary and Quebec adviser, Dimitri Soudas, and was a fundraiser for Action democratique du Quebec, a provincial party that is philosophically similar to the federal Conservatives. Former Montreal Canadiens coach Jacques Demers was once asked to be a candidate for the Conservatives in a general election but declined.

Journalist Linda Frum, the brother of David Frum, who was on George W. Bush's speech-writing staff and has a long history of involvement with conservative causes here and in the U.S., has been a vocal supporter of Harper's position on Israel and the Middle East.

A handful — former champion skier Nancy Green Raine and journalists Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin — revealed themselves as Conservatives upon their appointment.

Harper says they are all committed to his package on Senate reform which, among other things, includes new initiatives to have senators selected by the provinces, preferably through an election and to limit the terms of senators to eight years instead of the current practice, which is that they serve until they turn 75.

"But he didn't ask any of the 28 he's appointed so to sign an oath to resign after eight years. Now he's on the verge of a majority in the Senate, no one believes that he'll want to reform or abolish it. It will be the final nail in the coffin of the faux populism that brought Stephen Harper and the Reform party to Ottawa in the first place," said Christopherson.

Senator Michael MacDonald, a Harper appointee from Cape Breton, confirmed that when he and the prime minister discussed his appointment, the issue of the eight-year term did not come up and he has not committed to retiring by then. He does say, however, that he is committed to Senate reform and will support the Harper government's initiatives on the matter.

Harper's opponents say, regardless of their background, the senators appointed by Harper have promised to give up the independence of their own opinions when they accepted his offer to be a senator.

"The issue of independence is left at the door," said Easter. "They are there to collect their cheques and deliver the Harper agenda, regardless of what they may personally think of it."

Harper's Senate appointments:

Clear conservative political ties

Bert Brown / Reform party organizer

Claude Carignan / failed Conservative candidate

Fred Dickson / adviser to former N.S. premier John Buchanan, a Progressive Conservative

Nicole Eaton / writer and community leader, who chaired the Conservatives' last two national conventions

Doug Finley / Conservative national campaign manager

Michael Fortier / co-chaired Conservative national campaign

Suzanne Fortin-Duplessis / former Progressive Conservative MP

Stephen Greene / Reform party staffer

Michael MacDonald / Conservative party executive

Fabian Manning / former Conservative MP, lost re-election in 2008

Yonah Martin / failed Conservative candidate

Percy Mockler / New Brunswick Progressive Conservative

Richard Neufeld / provincial politician active in Social Credit, Reform and B.C. Liberal party

Don Plett / former Conservative party president

Michel Rivard / failed Canadian Alliance candidate

Judith Seidman / co-chaired Harper 2003 leadership bid

Carolyn Stewart-Olsen / longtime Harper communications aide

John Wallace / failed Conservative candidate

The others

Patrick Brazeau / endorsed Conservatives publicly in 2006

Jacques Demers / once asked to be a Conservative candidate

Michael Duffy / former broadcaster

Linda Frum / columnist, often supported key Harper policies

Leo Housakos / fundraiser for Action democratique du Quebec

Daniel Lang / former member of Yukon legislature

Kelvin Kenneth Ogilvie / academic and scientist

Dennis Patterson / former N.W.T. premier and Conservative supporter

Nancy Greene Raine / former Olympic medal-winning skier

Pamela Wallin / former broadcaster

List compiled by Kirsten Smith