alternate brain

In one of the more ludicrous announcements to come out of Victoria in recent memory, a government-appointed panel has decided that BC MLAs should get a 29 per-cent pay increase. Even more laughable is the panel’s decision to give the Premier an even bigger increase, with a 50 per-cent pay raise.

The report found that while over half of the 600-odd members of the public surveyed by the panel felt that MLAs currently make enough money, most of them thought MLAs make more than they do.

The report went on to say that of the opinions expressed at public hearings, one group felt that the current salary (currently $76,100 a year) discourages younger people from running for office.

Of course, the report conveniently doesn’t state what percentage of those making these assertions at the public hearings were opposed to the increase, so we don’t know whether it was 20 per-cent, or 80 per-cent, or whatever.

In fact, the report gives little or no detail on many of the numbers behind what led the panel to their decision. In any event, the panel basically wrote off what the members of the public said:

Taken as a whole, the survey results demonstrate a significant lack of understanding among the public in respect of what MLAs do and what they receive in total compensation.

It was interesting to note that nowhere in the survey did they actually tell the respondents what MLAs currently make. I wonder what kind of responses the panel would have gotten if they had shared that information during the survey process.

The report gives significantly more play to the views of those advocating an increase for MLAs, which is discussed in a lengthy paragraph, while the views of those opposed to such an increase received just two sentences.

As mentioned earlier, the public’s opinion is pretty well filtered out by the panel:

Taken as a whole, the submissions and the survey responses, as previously noted, demonstrated a lack of understanding among the public of both the duties and levels of MLA compensation. This, combined with the small number of submissions, has caused us to be cautious in interpreting the opinions received when formulating our recommendations.

An easy conclusion to reach, when the survey is designed to provide ambiguous responses, and the final report gives more play to one viewpoint than to another.

The increases mean MLAs will now be earning $98,000 per year, while the Premier’s salary shoots up to $186,200 annually. By comparison, a worker being paid the current minimum wage ($8 per hour) and working a 40-hour week earns just $16,640 per year.

No doubt, running for office to secure that grossly underpaid MLA position would be too discouraging to consider leaving that minimum wage job.

How the government can possibly justify such wholly unrealistic increases boggles the mind, as the province’s working poor — those earning at the current minimum wage level — struggle to subsist on the same money they were earning six years ago.

Of course, even more ridiculous is the so-called “Training Wage” of $6 per hour. The people that came up with that must be the same sort of big-business oriented people who were no doubt part of the aforementioned government-appointed panel (All of whom doubtless make more than $8 an hour).

For the government to give itself such a huge raise — and with the recommendation coming from a panel they appointed, thats really what this boils down to — is by far one of the most blatantly self-serving acts of the Campbell government to date.

This absurdity can still be stopped.

Contact your MLA and let them know how you feel, in the strongest terms. Write to your newspapers, and call your radio stations. Blog about it. Talk about it. Let’s help those that need it the most.