Harrison’s pay raise argument shows MLAs put themselves first

Cue the bagpipes! In a stellar demonstration of leadership, today’s Saskatchewan MLAs have just given themselves a 3.5 per cent raise.

This, of course, comes just a year after MLAs cut their salaries by the same amount in hopes that other public servants would follow suit.

The bagpipe reference is a long-standing in-joke in the Saskatchewan Press Gallery that has to do with the last time MLAs demonstrated such sacrifice while demanding the public service follow suit.

Back in 2005, Saskatchewan MLAs on the all-party Board of Internal Economy quietly agreed to give themselves not only their scheduled 2.2 per cent pay increase but also an additional 2.3 per cent increase they had waived the previous year in a similar display of leadership.

At the time, the NDP government under premier Lorne Calvert was on a major kick, mandating public sector wage increases of zero, one and one per cent for three years.

Left to explain the rationale to reporters was the NDP’s hapless caucus chair, Kim Trew. However, just as a Trew was beginning his gormless explanation in the legislature’s rotunda on what happened to be Tartan Day, the invited bagpipes started up, drowning out the scrum.

“Cue the bagpipes” has become the press gallery’s rallying cry any time a Saskatchewan politician is tasked with justifying the unjustifiable.

Ultimately, then-governing NDP MLAs scrapped the full raise. “We’re doing this to decisively end any suggestion that MLAs are receiving a greater benefit or increase than any other public sector employee,” Trew said in 2005.

But all’s well that ends well when it comes to Saskatchewan politicians, who have the unique privilege of determining what they should be paid.

Longtime bureaucrat Art Wakabayshi was appointed to review MLA remuneration and MLAs’ wages were boosted and tied to inflation. The annual salary for an ordinary Saskatchewan MLA has gone from $64,817 in 2006 to $96,183 today (following the most recent hike).

And then there are the additional duty top-ups like the extra $48,969 for cabinet ministers ($145,142 a year), $69,954 for the premier ($166,137 a year) or even the $3,000 bonuses Premier Scott Moe just doled out to 13 “legislative secretaries.” In all, the basic MLA wage has increased 48.4 per cent since 2006.

One might be left with a distinctly different impression after listening to what today’s Kim Trew — Economy Minister and Board of Internal Economy chair Jeremy Harrison — had to say Wednesday about why the 3.5 per cent wage hike was necessary.

“The reality is it’s been a 1.6 per cent increase (for MLAs) over four years,” Harrison told reporters, which is “probably in line or less than what you would see elsewhere” in this province. Acrobatically, Harrison vaulted past the nearly 50 per cent pay raise he and his colleagues have received in the past 12 years.

However, what was more stunning about Harrison’s performance Wednesday was that he skirted around the fact government MLAs have just undone whatever effect this wage cut was supposed to have.

Last year’s wage cut was to “show leadership” after the 2017-18 budget demanded a 3.5 per cent remuneration reduction across the entire public sector.

Wednesday, we learned from Harrison that the cut bravely endured by politicians, political staff and out-of-scope managers that saved $700,000 was just a one-year thing — something that will come as a surprise to taxpayers and union negotiators alike.

Herein lies the problem: The unions have just been handed a wondrous argument for demanding a similar salary increase. In fact, Saskatchewan’s 13,500 teachers facing that 3.5 per cent cut are now before an arbitrator. Do you think that arbitrator might now be carefully measuring Harrison’s words justifying his own pay hike?

Even if one can accept Harrison’s argument that neither the salaries nor the increases for MLAs are unreasonable for the heady work they do, it badly misses the point of why they cut their own wages in the first place.

It’s never what Saskatchewan MLAs do when it comes to giving themselves raises. It’s always how they do it.