MPs receive 1.6 per cent pay increase, annual salary now $160,200

PARLIAMENT HILL—House Speaker Andrew Scheer advised all MPs on Thursday they will be getting a minimum pay increase of $2,500 each beginning Monday, April 1, to bring their basic salaries up to $160,200 annually.

Mr. Scheer (Regina-Qu’Appelle, Sask.) announced the pay hike, which follows a three-year salary freeze, in an email to MPs as the Commons adjourned for a two-week spring break and the Easter long weekend.

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty (Whitby-Oshawa, Ont.) included a salary freeze for MPs and Senators in the 2010 budget as Canada was still trying to recover from a severe recession, following earlier stimulus spending.

More than 100 of 308 MPs also receive increases for their jobs as committee chairs and vice-chairs, whips, House leaders, Parliamentary secretaries, ministers and the Prime Minister for doing extra work on top of their MP duties.

Committee vice-chairs, two for each of the 27 House standing and special committees, will receive an additional $5,700 annually under the new pay rate, for occasionally filling in for absent committee chairs, while committee chairs will receive an additional $11,300 a year. Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) receives an additional $160,200, taking his pay to $320,400 for the year. Cabinet ministers, Speaker Scheer and Official Opposition Leader Thomas Mulcair (Outremont, Que.) will each receive an additional $76,700, for a total salary of $236,700.

The Liberal Party leader will receive a total salary of $214,500 as leader of the other opposition party.

The head of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation criticized the timing of the email, on the last day of the House sitting prior to a long break.

“It’s too bad the politicians feel they need to put this out on the Thursday before the Easter long weekend. It brings the process into disrepute,” CTF federal director Gregory Thomas said.

“It’s tough to get irate over a 1.6 per cent increase, the first one in three years. If federal politicians’ pay doesn’t get adjusted once a year or so, eventually they come up with a rationale for a monster pay hike,” he said. “We regard occasional monster pay hikes as worse than small annual cost-of-living increases.”

Mr. Gregory said the CTF’s major complaint is over a tax-free housing allowance MPs receive while on travel status in Ottawa and the “unsustainably generous” Parliamentary pension plan. He said the plan is still too generous, even with a new schedule calling on MPs to triple their contribution to it starting in 2016.

Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com
Author: Tim Naumetz