SPN Editorial: Right price
Commentary by Jeff Burgar
for South Peace News
It’s satisfying to learn our MLA paycheques will be reviewed by an independent fellow.
That fellow, John Major, is looking at all the money paid to our provincial elected people. From his investigation, he will decide if MLAs need - or even deserve - a raise.
Some of us might be skeptical of this process. For sure, there is little or no chance Major will recommend a wage cut. The whole idea is to figure out some justification to squeeze a few more dollars out of the ever pliant taxpayers. A wage cut? Nonsense on that!
But one has to be curious. How exactly does one decide what an MLA, or for that matter, what any politician, is worth?
The same question might apply to any large company, like Alberta Treasury Branches, or Husky Energy. Often, certain skills are needed in business. For a politician, the only skill set really required is the ability to get elected. Lest you scoff, let us say this is in fact an astonishing ability.
One can be very stupid, unable to even add two plus two, yet still able to convince people one is smart. One has to be able to tell lies in a way that few will question you.
And if questioned and caught out, one should be cuddly enough to still smile and shrug it off.
One must sound convincing. It helps to sound like they know all the answers, even when one can’t understand the questions. Being convincing not helps in telling lies, it also helps when using another persuasion. Being able to persuade people to let you spend millions of their money is a biggie.
And, when the dust settles and the smoke clears, and it looks like the emperor really does have no clothes, well, let bygones be bygones and let’s vote the clown in again. He needs the money, or our sympathy.
Or maybe, “Gee, it’s nice to have a (pick one: woman, ethnic, young person, senior, poor person, rich person, bowlegged, humpbacked, blind, deaf...etc, etc, etc,) in office.”
But, is this all getting elected stuff really worth anything in hard cash?
Politicians, for all their posturing, press releases and news clips, really don’t do much. It’s the deputy ministers and the career civil servants that swing the shovels and push the paper.
Case in point, our own premier, Alison Redford, has spent most of the past month babbling about the Keystone XL pipeline project, and about hammering people over two beers.
Redford can’t do anything about the pipeline but yak. Redford can do lots about getting drunks off the streets. For example, hiring more policemen to enforce laws we already have. Instead, her choice of action is surely one of the lamest ways of doing something imaginable.
Oh, sorry! We forgot! She also hired Major to investigate how much more money she should make for babbling.
We’re of the school that says take a fixed amount, plus some expenses. Say $75,000 for an MLA and perhaps $10,000 for a M.D. councillor, plus some expenses.
Now shut up, be happy and try actually doing the “public service” job you say you want to do.
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