Like a bad April Fools’ Day joke, every year on April 1, politicians in Ottawa pad their pockets the very same day they take more money from taxpayers with carbon and alcohol tax hikes.
This year may be no different.
On April 1, backbench MPs will collect a $7,900 pay raise, according to Canadian Taxpayers Federation estimates. That will push their annual salary to $211,000.
A minister will collect an extra $11,600, bringing their salary to $311,500. Can anyone explain why ministers deserve an extra $1,000 a month after running a $60-billion deficit?
The prime minister’s salary will increase by $15,800, to $422,000.
This year’s raise is just the tip of the iceberg. This year’s raise will be MPs’ sixth pay hike since the beginning of 2020.
A pandemic, lockdowns, job and business losses and their constituents not being able to afford basic necessities didn’t stop MPs from taking raises every year.
As of this April, MPs will receive an annual salary that’s $32,100 higher than they did pre-pandemic, while the prime minister will collect an extra $64,200.
Stopping these pay raises isn’t rocket science. The Stephen Harper government stopped automatic MP pay hikes between 2010 and 2013 in response to the 2008-09 recession.
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The raises continued in recent years because no political party had the guts to break ranks and make a stink about it. MPs largely shrug off the raises, with some promising to donate a bit of extra cash to charity.
Here’s the thing: MPs can donate to local charities without helping themselves to thousands of extra tax dollars. And even if an MP donates to charity, the pay raise still means they take higher taxpayer-funded pensions upon leaving office.
Ending these annual pay raises would be more than a symbolic gesture.
It’s called the House of Commons for a reason. MPs are elected to represent Canadians. But MPs have become financially divorced from the realities facing their constituents.
Sure, MPs pay more when the government hikes taxes, just like their constituents do. But the pain of tax hikes and inflation is offset by the extra taxpayer cash they take every year.
After this year’s pay raise, a backbench MP’s salary will be about three times higher than the average Canadian worker’s. A minister’s salary will be four times higher. And the prime minister’s salary will be about six times higher.
To fix the budget and cut taxes, politicians will need to cut the size and cost of the bureaucracy. And to sell cuts to the bureaucracy, politicians will need to show leadership on their pay.
Before going on strike in 2023, federal government unions pointed to “the yearly salary increases of senators and members of Parliament” as a reason why bureaucrats should be given more taxpayer cash.
The federal bureaucracy consumes half of the government’s day-to-day spending. In 2016, the bureaucracy cost taxpayers $40.2 billion. Now, it costs taxpayers $69.5 billion.
That means the cost of the bureaucracy increased 73% in less than a decade.
One of the best examples of politicians tightening their belts before extinguishing the deficit comes from former Alberta premier Ralph Klein.
Alberta had the highest deficit per capita in the country when Klein became premier in 1992. A dozen years later, Klein held up a “paid in full” sign and told a cheering crowd he was “very, very proud to announce that Alberta has slain its debt.”
How did Klein do it? He started by cutting politicians’ pay by 5% and cutting the size of the cabinet from 26 to 17 ministers.
If any politicians want to be a true champion of taxpayers, they must campaign against the upcoming April 1 pay raise.
Franco Terrazzano is federal director of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation