Conservative leader and Leader of the Opposition Stephen Harper blasted Prime Minister Paul Martin Thursday for "a slap in the face to Albertans, and to democracy in general" with his nine new Senate appointments today.

"There was a time when Paul Martin talked about a deep "desire to reform the Senate," Harper said. "His talk turned out to be empty. Instead, he stuck to the same old Liberal patronage routine. And worse, he's using the Senate, at taxpayers' expense, to play political games."

Harper added, "Paul Martin said he would consider himself a failure if he didn't fix western alienation. Well, he failed Albertans and failed democracy today. Albertans voted for the people they wanted to represent them in the Senate. And for the second time, they are being told that their votes don't count, because a Liberal prime minister has some friends to take care of first. He is unable to summon the political will to simply name the men and women that Albertans elected. It's disgraceful."

Harper said that Martin needs to come clean on where he actually stands on Senate reform. "Martin's been hiding behind a smokescreen of rhetoric on Senate reform for more than a decade," he said. "It's clear today that he's never really had any intention of dealing with the issue. He should have been honest with Canadians from the start, and told us that he intended to follow the same old Liberal senate playbook."

Prime Minister Paul Martin announced Thursday that Her Excellency the Governor General has agreed to summon Romeo Dallaire of Quebec, Jim Cowan of Nova Scotia, Art Eggleton of Ontario, Nancy Ruth of Ontario, Lillian Dyck of Saskatchewan, Robert Peterson of Saskatchewan, Grant Mitchell of Alberta, Elaine McCoy of Alberta and Claudette Tardif of Alberta to the Senate.