Councillors should stick to job they were elected to do

Figure out everyday issues before moving on to big ones

When the city can finally stick to a plan on exactly how to pick up our trash, then I’ll give a little more credence to its latest pontifications on solving the endlessly ticklish issue of different wages paid to men, women and those people who get lumped together as minorities.

Once upon a time, local councillors were supposed to look after such dull but necessary tasks as making sure potholes were fixed (hey, there’s a year’s worth of work right now here in Calgary), roads were built to get us places we needed to go, police officers and firefighters were hired for emergencies and, yes, ensuring our garbage was picked up each week with a bare minimum of fuss.

Oh, they were also supposed to keep a wary eye on the bottom line.

But that’s far too boring. After all, there’s not a lot to talk about over canapés if much of your day is taken up with organizing the dreary filling in of pesky holes. Nope, which is why the previous incarnation of Calgary city council, many members of which still have their footsies under the big table, decided to raid our rainy day fund and hand out $25,000 of ratepayers’ cash to rebuild roads in Haiti. How uplifting and worthy that must have felt.

So now we are off down the rabbit hole of investigating and trying to change the varying wage rates and employment mix among different segments of the city’s population, a conundrum that starts with a simple pronouncement that on average, Calgary men make more than women, and then immediately branches into more directions than pipeline lawsuits filed by the dastardly B.C. government.

As though that task wasn’t enough of a challenge, our fearless councillors also want to look at sexual orientation, immigration status and Indigenous identity when it comes to employment ratios and individual remuneration. Inevitably, they’ve now set up an advisory committee.

Moving forward, we are told by city bureaucrats, requires an “intersectional approach” to acknowledge multiple identities. Wow, look, they’re already making headway — we’re ditching that old, boring, bigoted language called English for something entirely new and spiffing, even if no one has a clue what it actually means (which is probably the point).

So, if we are setting off on this long and winding journey of comparing salaries, and also tallying the skin tone, birthplace and the religious affiliation of those folk doing various jobs, to ensure that everything is on a level playing field, then let’s go the whole hog.

Yes, let’s compare what the average city worker makes in wages, benefits, holidays, sick-day provisions and pension credits with the average Calgarian doing a similar job in the private sector. What does a grass cutter working for the city make compared to a young man starting out doing landscape work on his own?

It’s a lot of fun once you get started on this comparison business. I’m game to take it on — although, as an immigrant, I’ll obviously not be paid as much as someone born in Balzac.

And maybe if down the road, it is found that John at city hall is making more than Susan for doing the same type of job, then the answer isn’t quite as simple as it might appear to our fearless councillors. Perhaps someone might come to the conclusion that John is actually making far too much and his wage packet needs a serious trim to align it with his female co-worker.

Or maybe both of them need to come down to the same level as those outside this gilded cage.

Perhaps if some of those questions and potential solutions were thrown into the mix, then our councillors might instead decide to stick with the job they were elected to do, such as figuring out bike lanes and garbage pickup.

And if they still have time on their collective hands, well, there’s many a pothole that needs fixing.

… If they still have time ... well, there’s many a pothole that needs fixing.