Red Serge needs our support
Again we are witness to the ongoing double standard of overpaid senior bureaucrats and Members of Parliament compared to those Canadians that really put their shoulder to the mill stone and get the job done.
I’m referring to the latest obscenity perpetrated by our National Treasury Board. Last June an agreement was reached with the RCMP that included a 3.5 percent increase in salary in 2009. Now because our government has been caught with its pants down in the economic crunch it wants to roll back the agreement to 1.5 percent.
My question is this; why don’t our members of Parliament roll back their recent wage increase? Today the base salary for an MP is $155,400. MPs also get $22,000 or more yearly expenses to cover living costs while in Ottawa, and if that isn’t enough, each gets 64 free return airline tickets each year that can be used with partners and dependents.
But wait, there’s more. If you happen to be a Minister you can add another $74,400 on top of the above mentioned salary. A committee chair can add more than $10,700. The leader of the opposition gets an extra $74,400 every year, etc., etc.
Doesn’t seem to be much of an economic crisis in the salaries and benefits department for Parliament!
This is typical within the upper echelons of government most everywhere in Canada where dipping into the public purse is a delight for many a politician or policy maker. I don’t mean to paint everyone with the same brush since there are a few out there that give value for taxpayer money.
And we haven’t even mentioned the indexed pension that retired MPs and others get. Sweet!
Do you see the irony here? Who protects these well compensated parliamentarians while they stroll about the House of Commons in their silk suits? I’ll give you 3 guesses… the RCMP ensures that the hill is secure among many other security orientated duties that we aren’t even aware of.
Beyond this obvious dichotomy shouldn’t we Canadians ensure that the RCMP be appropriately compensated for the work they do? Isn’t it an insult to an important part of our national identity that our own Treasury Board wants to turn the clock back on a well overdue raise for the most recognizable police force in the world?
It’s an outrage. Here in the north we depend on the RCMP and the many services they provide, not to mention the fact that their lives are often on the line. While our parliamentarians are safely cloistered in the granite halls of Parliament an RCMP member is being shot at by a crazed drug addict in a crack house.
Please visit www.callforbackup.ca and sign the petition. Do write your member of parliament and ask that perhaps he or she might consider giving back some of their generous salary so our Treasury Board will have a little more to work with.