Huge perks for retiring lawmakers criticized
Province ‘stands out like a sore thumb’
Labelled rich or excessively generous, transition allowances given to retiring Alberta MLAS were the prime target on Thursday at a Calgary hearing on what provincial politicians should get paid.
Economist Herbert Grubel said every legislature in the country provides a transition allowance, but the dollars doled out here means “Alberta stands out like a sore thumb.”
The provincial commission charged with reviewing MLA pay, which also had a meeting in Edmonton last week, heard the transition allowance for departing members of the legislative assembly pays the equivalent of three months salary per year of service, based on a members’ three highestpaid years in office. There’s no maximum payout.
This year, millions of taxpayer dollars will be deposited in the bank accounts of retiring MLAS after the upcoming provincial election.
During Thursday’s presentation, Grubel, a professor emeritus at Simon Fraser University and a one-term Reform party MP, said he analyzed the complicated system for paying Alberta MLAS.
Alberta MLAS’ salaries and tax-free allowances put their yearly income in the middle of the pack among the provinces. However, the transition allowance given to departing MLAS is more than double what’s given to retiring politicians in Quebec and Ontario, and more than three times what’s paid in British Columbia, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. Alberta cabinet ministers in particular benefit from the allowance.
“It is important to have some resources available for people to feed their families while they’re looking for a new job,” Grubel said. But speaking to reporters following his presentation, he characterized Alberta’s transition allowances as “excessively generous.”
Supreme Court Justice John (Jack) Major, who has been asked by the legislature to review MLA compensation, hired some academics such as Grubel to prepare reports for his committee.
However others presenting to Major made the same point. “It’s is excessively rich,” said former legislature speaker David Carter, who blamed his success or ken kowalski—who is now retiring himself with an estimated $1.3 million payout — for the sky-high goodbye handshakes given to MLAS.
“It rewarded everybody,” Carter told reporters of the decision to go to transition allowances in 2001.
That was year the members’ services committee, then chaired by Kowalski, voted to radically change the formula used to calculate MLA severance. Instead of receiving two months’ credit for each year of service with a maximum cap of two years’ pay, the committee upped the allowance to the current formula.
Other speakers said MLA salaries should not be reduced. David Docherty, speaking as a political scientist rather than president of Mount Royal University, said Alberta’s political salaries shouldn’t be compared to other Western provinces, but higher-pay jurisdictions such as B.C, Ontario and Quebec.
“If we want good individuals, we have to be willing to pay for them,” Docherty said.
Alberta and Quebec are the only two provinces that still pay tax-free allowances to MLAS. Opposition MLAS Rob Anderson, Dave Taylor and Liberal Leader Raj Sherman all said this should stop — even though it would mean more tax dollars flowing to Ottawa and potentially higher gross salaries for politicians — to increase transparency about MLA salaries.
“Our full salaries should be taxed,” Taylor said.
During the Tory leadership race last year, Premier Alison Redford pledged an independent review of MLA pay.
Major, who was named by Kowalski, and will continue to take written submissions from Albertans who want to comment on MLA pay until Feb. 24. He said he will present his report to the legislature before April 1 — which might be before the provincial election this spring.
A number of MLA pay committee meetings in smaller centres were cancelled this month due to a lack of interest.