My, my, my, my, what a mess. Sometimes politicians just do it to themselves.
Let’s say that next time I leave a job—and I like this one, so don’t hold your breath—I’ll get together with like-minded colleagues, many of whom are also departing.
We will award ourselves extra pension compensation dating back more than a decade—a goodbye gesture in an unrecorded vote, no less, so no one knows who among us are so indulgent and self-interested.
And while we’re at it, because we’re cranky about recent federal tax changes, we’ll award ourselves some extra local dough to offset the incursion into our pay packet. To echo the words of others, we’ll “make ourselves whole.”
Now, to be generous to those who follow us, we will give our successors the pension compensation, too, and a salary increase to offset a tax change that eliminated the tax-free element of our income.
Sounds crazy, doesn’t it? I mean, who would do that? Who could do that? Who could possibly be empowered to be able to do that?
Well, if you’ve been non-comatose in recent days, you have heard of the good folks over at the unelected Metro Vancouver board.
They negated a move that would have placed federal tax on the tax-free one-third of their board income, and they determined it was time for a pension for their duty—about $1,100 for each year of service, retroactive to 2007.
These board members are unelected. They are drawn from the ranks of mayors and councillors across Greater Vancouver, and the privilege of serving on the board and the compensation are perquisites of their office. All have good salaries and benefits already.
This new layer of reward is another batch of curds on top of the gravy upon the poutine.
Many of these board members are voluntarily leaving politics this fall, so consider this vote one more kiss into their mirrors. Some of the board will be seeking re-election, and I doubt the public will be quite as enamoured.
The knee-slappers in justifying the pension and salary moves deserve repeating.
Greg Moore, the outgoing mayor of Port Coquitlam, said it was important to raise the rewards in order to have the right people step up to serve.
Last time I checked, there was a long lineup to serve—after all, there are stipends for each meeting and a salary for membership.
Asked how the board decided on the retroactive pension payment, Moore said “10 years seemed like a good time to look at.” So there was science at play here.
Vancouver councillor Raymond Louie, who will face the fire in October in seeking reelection, justified the increases as compensation for a board devoting time and energy away from their home communities.
Last time I checked, the Metro Vancouver board is all about his community. It tries to find coherence in the competing interests of its nearly two-dozen elements. If he finds that a distraction from his work around home base, well, he is not a hostage. Someone else will happily step in to make sure he keeps his focus in Vancouver.
No, there is nothing plausible here. No amount of their explaining the cookie jar justifies their hands in it.
True, there are ethical dilemmas in awarding oneself compensation increases, and there is no easy way around it. Independent reviews are usually tilted to those who would benefit. In this instance, board staff reviewed the matter and made recommendations. The board itself discussed it—albeit much of the talk was in camera, so we have no idea who squawked and who licked his chops.
The easiest move would have been for the board to set new compensation only for future boards, to avoid its immediate conflict of interest. It would be signalling to the public that it considers the work more valuable and that future politicians ought to be duly recognized.
Instead, taxpayers will dole out about $500,000 for the retro reward. No one had pursued pensions for the board until now, so it is greedy to help themselves. If they can’t see fit to roll back this idea, post-haste, then I presume the voter will send them to their new pensions sooner than later.
And, sorry, if you’re taking a hit by losing some non-taxable income, well, my sympathies are not with you. You are already paid a salary by your home community. This is a double-dip and you should be grateful for anything extra coming your way.
The result: the taxpayer now has to compensate for what another level of government tried to get back for the taxpayer. This isn’t public service. It’s public malice.
