And Now For Something Just A Little Different!

This bill challenges all MLAs in this house to cut the strings of their million-dollar pensions and to accept the same standards that other British Columbians have to accept in their lives. In order for us to change the public image of MLAs as self-serving, it’s going to require MLAs to stop being self-serving. We cannot ask others to tighten their belts if we’re not willing to tighten our own. (Opposition Leader) Gordon Campbell, as he signed a pledge to not ever accept an MLA pension - July 5, 1995

I was one of 84 British Columbians who made a submission to the 'Independent Commission to Review MLA Compensation' and my advice to them was as follows:

Dear Commissioners,
Thank-you for providing me this opportunity to share with you my thoughts on the issue of British Columbia MLA compensation and related matters. The 'benefits package' for elected officials has long been a contentious one and I don't believe that we have yet found either the best method or the correct level of benefits which result in fair compensation for these members while at the same time ensuring good value for their employers, the taxpayers.
Of course, it doesn't seem quite right that politicians should set their own 'pay', so a number of different methods with better 'optics' have been tried over the past number of years. Many municipal politicians/governments in British Columbia seem to have adopted the 'comparison' method of determining their own compensation package. They have their staffs look at 'similar' jurisdictions around the province and then seek to match some benchmark of the resulting range of remuneration. The problem here is that it becomes very difficult to determine what is the appropriate measure of 'similar'. At present, it seems that it basically consists of looking at population figures (and possibly the size of budgets overseen). The major problem with that is it is a very 'superficial' measure and likely doesn't really get to measuring the workload that these public servants experience. Another significant problem is that it pretty much guarantees a regularly increasing cycle of raises since, every time an upwards adjustment is made, it raises the comparative 'average' so that the next jurisdiction to go through the exercise finds that they naturally have to raise their packages, as well, and so onwards and upwards it goes.
I think a much better system would involve an attempt at accounting for the key 'deliverables' of their position, e.g., how many meetings they attend and for how long, how many days the legislature sits in a year and what their individual attendance is like, how many 'files' they have opened in dealing with constituents' concerns and how successful they have been at resolving those issues, how much time they spend at their constituency offices, etc. In other words, some tangible measure of "value for the money".
As far as pensions go, I think that public servants should be subject to similar rules and pensions as in the rest of the public sector. By that I mean that they should have to work a minimum number of years to become vested in the plan, they should have to contribute a considerable portion to the plan and their pensions should be in-line with what persons earning similar amounts for similar lengths of time would receive. I don't know if it would be practical but, since the majority of our MLAs came from other jobs to become politicians, maybe their time-out from 'working' should, for pension purposes anyway, be treated as if they were still with their previous employer, i.e, their pension would be managed as if they had never left and would simply continue upon their return.
I hope these thoughts/ideas will assist you in developing recommendations which will result in a compensation system which is based on the results actually achieved for the people they serve rather than simply the position they hold and no more and no less than the myriad of other public servants would be entitled to under similar circumstances.

In their report, the Commission comments about how few submissions they received and takes this to mean that most British Columbians don't seem to care what their representatives are paid. This is a very dangerous conclusion to reach and, I believe, a totally incorrect one. If I had been a member of the Commission (I know, 'ordinary' people weren't asked to serve), I would have moved 'heaven and earth' to see to it that opinions were obtained from a broad spectrum of British Columbians, even if it meant 'taking to the streets'.

Although the Commissioners did make comparisons to what/how other politicians in Canada are compensated, they failed to follow-through and provide a comparison of the jobs/responsibilities involved. One potentially useful indicator to look at would have been the 'average' number of constituents that each of them should be representing, and therefore, I present for your information and understanding the following:

Federal MPs: 102,639 constituents/MP
Ontario MPPs: 118,061 constituents/MPP
Quebec MNAs: 60,369 constituents/MNA
British Columbia MLAs: 54,563 constituents/MLA

With the 29% increase, BC MLAs will be paid $5/yr. less than an MPP in Ontario. I will leave it for you to draw your own conclusions.

Fast Forward to Today

A year and a half ago, a salary increase of $10,480/$16,220/$25,220 (14/14/21%) for, respectively, the MLA's, Cabinet Ministers and Premier was shelved after public outrage, mainly over the size of the increases and the reintroduction of a 'Porsche' pension plan. Before the current session ends in about 4 more sitting days and heading out on their 4-month summer break (they will have sat for only about 117 days in the roughly 550 days since the previous bill was repealed), MLA's are set to have a 'free' vote on a package that would give them $21,900/$31,900/$65,200 (29/28/54%) , a similar 'defined benefits' pension plan plus an enhanced severance package (which will apply even if they quit) and a generous 'retraining allowance'. This "raising the price to have it sell" is sometimes called the 'Realtor's gambit'!
These are the majority (not unanimous) recommendations from an 'independent' panel picked by the Premier ('average' British Columbians just like you and me - a former judge, a senior lawyer and a college professor). Interestingly enough, it was the member of the panel with what appears to be the most human resources expertise who dissented on some of the recommendations, stating they had been changed while she was in Europe.
Since 412 persons ran for the 79 seats in the last provincial election, it doesn't seem like the remuneration is keeping people from running. Also, since only 49% of MLA's completed the survey emailed to them by the Commission, it doesn't appear that changes to their compensation is a big issue for many of them either.
The Commission made a number of comparisons with what others are paid but they failed to show that the politicians' duties/responsibilities matched those they were comparing to. They also failed to make the connection of 'pay for performance' (one MLA may be an excellent representative, another left wanting). Also, whatever happened to the 'public service' aspect of being a politician?
All but two of the Liberal MLA's walked out during 'debate' of this bill - quite the way to demonstrate they deserve a raise! They should each be docked the approx. $500 they didn't earn that afternoon!
An Ipsos-Reid poll found that 2/3 of the voters said that they would remember whether their MLA votes for this 'platinum' compensation package and that it would influence how they vote in the next election - add it to your list now so we really won't forget!

It should be noted that, under a previous 'arrangement' for determining MLA compensation, their annual salary was already being increased at the rate of provincial inflation, which is about what the public sector workers have received over the past 2 or 3 years.
The government also made a very cynical move when they inserted language in the authorizing bill which would allow individual MLA's to opt out entirely ONCE AND FOR ALL! This means that if the bill is passed, anyone who voted against it because they didn't believe that they deserve that large an increase and that generous a pension would be extremely limited in trying to do the right thing by the taxpayers. If they opted out, they would lose even the matched RRSP pension plan (9% of salary) to which they were currently entitled so it becomes not only a matter of trying to 'stand still' but actually sliding backwards!
There is no educational requirement to become an MLA, an MLA oversees very few staff and they can work as much or as little as they want. It has not been proven that, in general, they even read the legislation which they are being asked to vote upon, finding it easier to just follow the lead of the party whip, 'free' votes or no! It has definitely not been proven that they do, in fact, represent their constituents in the way that they vote.
By far, the majority of the 'work' of an MLA is performed by their constituency assistants, which we also pay for or it is activities related to their re-election. As an indicator of how they respond to one of those 77 daily incoming emails (on average) referred to in the Commission's report, here is an example of the response I received when I contacted each of our 79 MLA's regarding their 'Chutzpah' at even considering such a rich compensation package:

All of my email messages are reviewed on a regular basis. However, due to the high volume of emails received, I may not be able to respond personally to each one.

I have also recently sent emails to my MLA, Liberal Ron Cantelon, and government Ministers, Mike DeJong and Ida Chong, and have not even received so much as an acknowlegement from any one of them of the time and effort I put into making them aware of my concerns on several issues. I should note that I only received even this minimal response from 4 [now 6] of our 79 MLA's, not a single one from anyone in government. So you see, even if they do receive, on average, 77 emails a day, if they don't answer many of them, those certainly shouldn't be counted as work!
If you have ever taken the time to read the transcripts of the debate in the House (called the 'Hansard', http://www.leg.bc.ca/hansard/8-8.htm), you may have noticed that members are repeatedly chastized by the Speaker for referring to who is in or not in the House, in other words, you don't even have a record of their attendance at such an important part of conducting the people's business.

How long do you think it will take before this kind of unrestrained greed trickles down to our own local politicians? The MLA's are using the benefits paid to Federal MP's, in part, to try and justify these outrageous increases so mighten we not now expect to see our Regional Directors, Mayor and Councillors take a similar approach to seek to improve their own lot in life?

UPDATE [08 05 09] Came across this information on how many sitting days of the B. C. Legislature there has been each year since 2001 [http://www.lop.parl.gc.ca/ParlInfo/compilations/provinceterritory/SittingDays.aspx?Language=E&Province=8fbed518-caa8-42fa-9ae9-5b07a5522c9e&Year=2015]:

2001 37 (election year)
2002 76
2003 74
2004 57
2005 52 (election year)
2006 46
2007 70
2008 57 [Mini-Update - 11 02 03]
2009 66 (election year)
2010 46
2011 48 [Mini-Update - 12 04 30]
2012 47 [Mini-Update - 13 02 11]
2013 36 (election year) [Mini-update - 13 10 08]
2014 71
2015 74 [Mini-Update - 16 03 04]
2016 51
2017 19 (election year) [Mini-Update - 17 04 28]

Note that a 'day' for our provincial politicians begins at 10:00 am, stops for lunch at 12:00 for an hour and a half and then resumes until usually around 5:00 - 5:30 pm. All-in-all, a 'good' day is something like 5 1/2 to 6 hours.

UPDATE [08 09 16] I had held off putting up the 2008 numbers since, in all fairness, the year wasn't over yet and the government had intimated that they might hold a fall session of the Legislature. Well, that faint hope has now been dashed on the rocks of expediency and we now know that there will NOT be a fall session. Things are going well, government is running smoothly and the priority legislation was all dealt with in the spring session - therefore, no need to meet to discuss the people's business but rest assured that they will still be earning every penny of that big raise they granted themselves (as a priority) in that session. My own 'elusive' MLA, Liberal Ron Cantelon, has recently returned from holidays and now appears ready to dive into the one thing on his own agenda. So, without any further suspense, here is the 'final' number for 2008 - 57.

UPDATE [08 08 09]
Well, as I predicted, it didn't take long and the vicious circle has claimed millions more in taxpayer dollars. Today, while the Premier was away 'schmoozing' with those well-known, 'champions' of human rights at the Beijing Olympics and playing the great statesman that he hopes someday to be, it was quietly announced that senior B. C. bureaucrats would be receiving raises ranging from 22 to 43 percent ($35,164 to $104,664/yr.), with the lower end of the scale going to assistant deputy ministers and the upper end to deputy ministers. This, after reportedly approx. 25 percent raises in both 2003 and 2006 and Premier Campbell latterly saying that the salaries would be reviewed in four (4) years (for the math challenged, like our Premier, that wouldn't be until 2010!).
The supposed justification for these huge increases is that we need to attract and retain the very best people to manage our fiscal enterprise - the good ship 'Beautiful British Columbia' (subjectively "The Best Place on Earth"). However, there is no information provided in the announcement which would help we who will be footing the bill assess how much of a problem this has been in the past. IIABDFI - if it ain't broke, don't fix it! Just like with the MLA's, as a taxpayer, I expect some tangible measures of their performance to show that they even deserve what they were being paid prior to August 1st, the date the raises are retroactive from. My own numerous experiences with MLA's, Cabinet Ministers and senior bureaucrats, is that, as a whole, as far as serving the public goes, they really aren't worth much, certainly not hundreds of thousands of dollars per year.
As stated earlier, I would now expect the senior civil servants in the other provinces and territories to belly up to the trough and demand higher salaries so that their own stature has not been reduced by B. C.'s actions. I also note that, while Transportation Minister Kevin Falcon took the time to call the Chairperson of B. C. Ferries about their recent raises at the same time admitting that, since they were now a 'private' company, there was nothing more he could do - as a member of Cabinet, he had to have been actively involved in seeing these recent, obscene raises happen.
It is just another example of using our own money to try to help ensure Mr. Campbell's own political dynasty. Wouldn't it be reasonable to assume that all of these assistant deputy and deputy ministers would now be very much 'onside' with this government, doing whatever it takes to to protect the 'house of cards, mirrors and shadows', when they are the beneficiaries of such extreme largesse?

UPDATE [13 10 08]
BC government political staff increases
BC Ferries board salaries
BC Hydro Executive 'manufactured' bonuses