How large? In 2010 - and we are not pretending anymore - Mr. Clark earned $11.3-million, a tidy sum that included $1.5-million in base salary, $2.6-million in stock options and a cash bonus of $1.96-million.
We know the numbers because the bank is a publicly traded company with shareholders and a fiduciary duty to disclose what the guy in the corner office makes.
Now, let's pretend that you are Alison Redford, the publicly elected Progressive Conservative Premier of Alberta. Ms. Redford's annual salary is $213,450. Plus, well, more, although just how much more nobody knows since the PC party and Ms. Redford are not saying.
What we can say is this: Alberta's premier receives a salary top-up, a bump from her party in an amount that as voters, and taxpayers, Albertans are not privy to.
Ms. Redford's predecessors, Ed Stelmach and Ralph Klein, both received a salary top-up in a long running financial arrangement between premier and party that raises questions about political transparency.
"What people are concerned about is that there are people donating large amounts of money to the party, and that money then goes to the premier to basically help pay their salary," says Harold Jansen, a politics professor at the University of Lethbridge.
"The danger is that the premier will somehow become beholden to certain private donors. That's the risk. And what magnifies that risk in Alberta is that political donations have high limits for individuals."
Joe Albertan can donate $15,000 a year to Alberta's PC party, or the party of his choice. During an election campaign the ceiling doubles to $30,000, a not insignificant pile of dough. Corporations and unions are also free to write sizeable checks.
Wild Rose country is not alone in its proclivity to pay its premier twice. Quebec Premier Jean Charest received an extra $75,000 a year from the provincial Liberals - for a decade - and voters knew nothing about it. The extra cash totalled almost a million dollars in surplus compensation before the practice bubbled to light in 2008 and was discontinued two years later.
"I never thought it was something relevant to the public domain," Mr. Charest said, when news of his second salary surfaced.
Here is one reason it is relevant: Political contributions generate tax credits for donors - up to a maximum of $500 in most provinces. If Party X turns around and uses its donations to pay Premier Y a second salary, then that salary is taxpayer subsidized.
"It could be even more problematic if the party is brown paper bagging it," says Myer Siemiatycki, a political scientist at Ryerson University. "If somehow funds generated out of the pockets of who knows who are being used to pay the leader - it could be an opportunity for buying access, favours or influence.
"By whatever route the funds are being generated this could run strongly counter to the public interest."
I did a quick survey this week of other provinces, and found that topups, past and present, pop up in a number of places.
B.C.'s Liberals provide Premier Christy Clark an undisclosed "allowance" to cover expenses related to party business, but no province east of Manitoba currently has such a top-up.
The Nova Scotia Liberals amassed a multimillion-dollar war chest in the 1970s by - wink, wink - encouraging liquor companies to pay them cash to ensure their products were sold in government-operated liquor stores. From out of the ill-gotten war chest emerged a secret salary for Vince MacLean, then Liberal leader and a premierin-waiting in the early 1990s whose aspirations and political career imploded when the top-up came to light.
Ontario Liberals bought Dalton McGuinty a house in Toronto in 2004 that Mr. McGuinty, as premier, admittedly could not afford. He still lives there, too, and it is rent-free.
Saskatchewan, meanwhile, is the most secretive of all. Multiple calls to Saskatchewan Party Premier Brad Wall's office inquiring about a secret salary went unreturned.
Origin
Source: National Post
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