Airdrie-Cochrane MLA Peter Guthrie says the vote to decrease Alberta representatives’ salary demonstrates fiscal leadership by the government and is not a prelude to pay cuts to frontline workers.
“It’s an acknowledgment that so many people in the province have suffered,” said Guthrie, adding the pay decrease was a way to show Albertans the government is committed to fulfilling a campaign promise while exercising fiscal prudence.
The decision made Tuesday will reduce MLAs and cabinet ministers' salaries by five per cent and the premier’s by 10 per cent to $121,000, $181,000 and $186,000 respectively. While that still means Alberta representatives have a salary higher than their Ontario counterparts, Guthrie says good progress has been made toward reducing elected officials’ salaries in the province. He added Alberta MLAs do not receive a pension, and instead have a shared RRSP plan benefit.
Guthrie said this is the second time Alberta MLAs have taken a pay decrease in the past five years and added there was a wage freeze between the two reductions. Tossing in the cancellation of the fuel credit to MLAs – which paid for expenses such as vehicle maintenance and car washes – Guthrie called the decrease to MLA compensation significant.
The NDP Opposition has called the move to decrease compensation to politicians a ploy to justify rolling back wages to frontline workers, pointing to a recent court battle between the UCP and Alberta Union of Provincial Employees as evidence. The Alberta Government is appealing a recent court decision in favour of AUPE that challenged the Public Sector Wage Arbitration Deferral Act. The act would allow the government to delay contract negotiations.
Guthrie said the two issues are unrelated and emphasized that the Alberta Government has indicated it plans to not only maintain or increase spending in the areas such as health and education but also has plans to “shift resources” to those areas.
“We need to know our fiscal position before we do any kind of negotiating,” said Guthrie of the government’s desire to delay negotiations. “The people of Alberta expect us to be fiscally responsible.”
While MLA salaries have decreased, Alberta’s sunshine list continues to have top-level bureaucrats earning between $500,000 and $900,000 annually. Before leaving office, the NDP capped salaries to the heads of provincial universities, some of whom were earning more than $700,000.
While Guthrie didn’t reveal any government plans to look at the salaries of the government’s top bureaucrats, he did say he suspects many Albertans disagree with those pay rates considering a recession where tens of thousands either lost jobs or had their wages rolled back.
