The base salary for senators went up to $135,200 from $132,300 — an increase of $2,900 — on April 1, the same day salary increases kicked in for MPs, whose base salary rose to $160,200 from just under $158,000, for an increase of about $2,500.
While MPs gave themselves a 1.6 per cent increase, that decision for senators translated into an approximately 2.3 per cent wage increase for everyone in the upper chamber, including Sen. Patrick Brazeau who is on a forced leave of absence. Senate administrative rules allow the upper chamber to reduce a suspended senator’s salary. Brazeau, however, is not suspended, meaning he retains his salary and only has spending limits imposed on his office budget.
The cost to pay each of Canada’s 105 senators their salary this fiscal year will total almost $14.2 million, not including any increases in bonuses provided to the government and opposition leaders, the Speaker of the Senate, deputy leaders, whips and committee chairs. Combined, those bonuses increased by about $5,600, for a total of just under $500,000 for the fiscal year.
Sen. Marjory LeBreton, the government leader in the Senate, saw her additional allowance increase by $1,200 to $76,700, while the top Liberal in the Senate, Sen. James Cowan, saw his additional pay for being opposition leader rise by $500 to $36,500. Senate Speaker Noël Kinsella‘s additional salary increased by $800 to $56,000. Those dollar figures are added to the senators’ $135,200 base salaries.
The upper chamber was modeled on the British House of Lords, but unlike that country’s upper house, members of the Senate receive an annual salary rather than a daily allowance. If the Senate were to adopt the British model, senators here would earn about $460 per day of work, which based on about 90 sitting days a year (not including committee work) would total about $45,000 annually — less than half of what they earn now.
“The idea that these appointed senators make that kind of money, it’s completely random. There’s no precedent for it in the British system. If we elected them, I think you could make a better case for it,” said Gregory Thomas, federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
The pay increase for senators is a quirk of legislation that links senators’ salaries increases with those of MPs, but $25,000 less than the base salary for members of the Commons, according to the Parliament of Canada Act. When MPs approved the increase in their salaries — a decision made behind closed doors — they effectively voted to give senators an increase as well.
The increase wasn’t in the main estimates the Senate presented in late February, a document that laid out how much the Senate expects to spend in the 2013-14 fiscal year. According to estimates, the Senate’s internal economy committee expected salaries and bonuses for senators to remain unchanged from the last fiscal year.
Last week, Speaker of the House of Commons Andrew Scheer sent a note to MPs telling them of their increase. The Senate didn’t announce that its members would also receive a salary increase, and the upper chamber didn’t have an answer Wednesday as to why the raise wasn’t proactively announced.
Thomas suggested Parliament should rethink how MPs receive pay raises and approve salaries for the next group of parliamentarians, rather than for those still sitting.
“The increase should be set by this Parliament for the next Parliament so that people who are seeing that increase have no guarantee that they will get that increase,” Thomas said.
Senate rules allow senators to not take a cent for their work, or give back a percentage of their salary as a gift to the Crown. Since 2006, when the Conservatives first came to power and began appointing Tory senators, no member of the upper chamber invoked either measure available to them. (Sen. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu vowed upon entering the Senate in 2010 that he would donate his salary to the charity he founded.)
Overall, projected spending in the Senate has inched up to $92.5 million from the $92.2 million budgeted last year, an increase of just over $300,000.
How much does your senator earn?
Sessional allowances and additional salaries for all parliamentarians — MPs and senators — were frozen at the 2009-10 fiscal year level until the end of the 2012-13 fiscal year. Since the 2012-13 fiscal year is over, pay raises have kicked in for senators and MPs on April 1. Here’s how much senators are earning:
(*=Excluding standing joint committee on the Library of Parliament)
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: Jordan Press
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