We should always expect leaders to set the example they expect the rest of us to live by. After all, actions speak louder than words.
There’s little else that undermines a politician’s integrity and sincerity more than a “Do as I say, not as I do” attitude.
So recent news that Alberta’s premier and MLAs will absorb pay cuts is commendable — especially coming from the party of so-called fiscal restraint and responsibility.
A provincial press release dated Aug. 6 declared the government passed a five per cent pay reduction for MLAs and a 10 per cent reduction for the premier.
According to a CBC report, the changes cut salaries for MLAs to $120,931 from $127,296 as of Aug. 6. The leader of the UCP and Alberta’s Premier Jason Kenney, had his pay cut to $186,170 from $206,856.
But that’s only base salary. There are, as we all know, additional perks.
“Members of cabinet are given additional compensation of $63,648 on top of their MLA base pay. With that extra amount cut to $60,468, their salaries drop from $190,944 to $181,399,” the CBC reported.
In other words, they can easily absorb such a modest cut. Meanwhile, the median after-tax income across Alberta in 2016 was barely more than $70,000. The Canadian median is only $57,000.
I once had asked MLA Jason Nixon, during my earlier days with the Round Up when he was still a member of the Wildrose official Opposition criticizing the government for overspending, what his thoughts were on taking a pay cut to lead by example.
Although he’d expressed a willingness to consider such an approach, his answer was primarily that on a provincial budget worth tens of billions, MLA compensations barely amount to a proverbial drop in the bucket.
There are 87 seats in the Alberta legislature. For simplicity’s sake, assuming a lowball figure of $130,000 per MLA, which doesn’t even include additional compensation, that amounts to roughly $11.3 million. That in turn represents but a puny fraction of a single percentage point of the nearly $48 billion that was anticipated in revenue in the 2018-19 budget.
So technically, Nixon certainly was not wrong in his assertion.
But it’s telling that while somewhat dismissive of the suggestion to cut back salaries when he was in Opposition, the Conservatives have now embraced the approach.
Which leads me to wonder if this decision is more about political posturing to set the stage for a hack-and-slash approach to the upcoming budget that would make King Klein jealous.
I fear this minor sacrifice, which amounts to little more than a symbolic gesture from extremely well-compensated politicians — already among the highest paid in Canada — will be used as justification to make cuts elsewhere. Politicians can afford a reduction in pay, but public sector workers — from nurses to teachers — are not in the same enviable position.
It’s important to remember that austerity measures are actually detrimental to a recovering or struggling economy.
Economists largely tend to agree that some amount of wise deficit spending, not to be confused with recklessly throwing money around, during difficult times helps stimulate vital economic activity, and that cuts only create stagnation at best, seizures at worst.
So it is with bated breath that I await the new government’s budget in the fall, and I admittedly do not particularly look forward to seeing what cuts are announced in order to accommodate Kenney’s tax breaks for billionaires.
