Ontario MPPS long overdue for a pay raise
The annual release of Ontario’s Sunshine List must be a bit discouraging for the province’s MPPS. Each year, more names are added to the list of public sector six-figure earners, while the salaries of those already on the list get larger.
The latest version of the list is out and for the first time there are more than 300,000 people earning more than $100,000 in salary from the government. That’s up from 267,000 people in 2022.
Meanwhile MPPS, the people in charge of all the spending, haven’t had a raise since 2008. At an annual base salary of $116,550, the province’s politicians are in the six-figure club, but only at the bronze membership level.
Ontario politicians’ self-induced pay problem is blackly amusing — unless you’re an MPP. When it comes to overall spending, government members have no apparent problem with record expenditures and persistent deficits. The Opposition’s main critique is that the government is not spending enough. And yet, when it comes to their own pay, MPPS find even the idea of a rate-of-inflation increase to be too controversial to contemplate.
Given their overall spending pattern, MPPS’ salary self-flagellation is rather pointless, other than as an example of being penny wise and pound-foolish.
Having frozen their own pay, perhaps in perpetuity, the province’s politicians continue to wait for the elusive ideal time to give themselves a raise. When would that be? It’s certainly not something any party would run on, nor is it a change that should be made right after getting elected without first running on. Not to be overly cynical, but maybe the middle of a term, two years from an election, would be the ideal time. Like now.
Whatever one’s opinion of politicians, the mere fact that Ontario provincial members haven’t had a raise in nearly 16 years suggests that something ought to be done as a matter of fairness.
The MPP pay situation was never intended to be permanent. Then premier Dalton Mcguinty froze politicians’ pay during a financial crisis, hoping to lead by example so unions would restrain their pay demands. Whatever value that leadership might have had back then, it’s long gone now.
Having heroically frozen MPPS’ pay, Mcguinty refused to increase it, as did his successors Kathleen Wynne and Doug Ford. At one point, the PCS were set to increase MPP pay by nearly $26,000 as a reward for balancing the budget, a goal that remains elusive. They changed their minds, concerned about the optics.
Not surprisingly, Ontario MPPS have fallen well behind their political peers.
Federal politicians who represent the same ridings as Ontario MPPS, and are arguably responsible for less important services, have been taking a fun ride on the inflation escalator. Pay for federal members of Parliament goes up every year on April 1, based on an index of private-sector increases. This year, that means an $8,500 raise for your basic backbencher, boosting pay to $203,100. If an MP makes it into cabinet, his or her pay goes up by $96,800. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau now makes $406,200.
Ford gets $208,774 and Ontario cabinet ministers are paid $165,851.
Even Toronto city councillors earn more than MPPS. Toronto councillors were paid $128,346 last year and Mayor Olivia Chow brings home $216,116. Toronto municipal politicians also get annual inflation increases.
Ford has come up with a partial fix for his own MPPS. His cabinet has 30 members, certainly a generous number, and they are helped by 38 other MPPS who hold the title of parliamentary assistant. This gimmick boosts their pay to just under $140,000.
Opposition MPPS are not so fortunate, although the New Democrats have already said that their current salary is high enough. They get a bulk discount on their hair shirts from a unionized supplier.
Ontario politicians have been unwilling to take any political heat for giving themselves a raise, but the longer they wait the tougher the solution becomes. If MPPS had received rate-of-inflation increases over the last 15 years, they’d be making about $163,000 now instead of $116,550.
No one is going to suggest a $47,000 catch-up increase, but doing nothing indefinitely is a form of self-sacrifice that offers limited value to the public. An annual raise of $5,000 a year for the 124 MPPS would cost the public $620,000 in the first year, rising by the same amount the following year and so on. The PCS could create a salary target of $150,000 and get there in seven years. That doesn’t seem unreasonable.
That $5,000 annual raise would cost each Ontarian about four cents a year. Personally, I think our MPPS are worth it. I’m mailing a nickel to Queen’s Park today. They can keep the change.