Against the raise

Jim Crackel

Letter to the Editor
Scene: Ontario Legislature, Early December 2006
A Speaker: “Okay boys, here it is....Dalton and his chosen few have come up with a dandy idea. In a nutshell it’s ‘Let’s take a twenty-five percent across the board salary increase!’
I see that some of you are concerned about having to forego a few days of holidays to debate this. Listen to reason! We all know that this debate thing is just window dressing. It’s not as if we have a free vote to express the wishes of our electorate....we vote along party lines or we don’t come back. We can put up a short show for the folks back home and still have plenty of time to head to Mexico, Hawaii or wherever.
I hear someone out there questioning whether we deserve a raise. Would someone take that rookie out in the hall and explain to him that we aren’t elected for integrity and that the Ontario people are the most gullible and apathetic people in Canada. We can blow this by them as easily as we have in the past.
I recall a few years back when we had an organization called Ontario Hydro and we controlled it as a crown corporation. When we discovered there was trouble brewing, we dropped the name ‘Ontario’ to show that we were not responsible, and told the rabble that the electricity would go public. All hell broke loose when it was discovered that the government appointed CEO and executives had forgotten the upkeep of the nuclear plants and had wasted and miss- spent millions of public money. Instead of arresting, charging and jailing them or asking them to repay, we, the government handed the CEO a blank cheque to write severance packages for all the executives that could be paid by hydro customers for decades. The new company, Hydro None or One or something is hiding all the mess in a cleverly scripted customer bill under “accumulated debt”, transportation charges and so forth.
Remember about fifteen years ago the Feds in Ottawa passed the “temporarily” GST at seven per cent and were shamed out of power? At the same time we slipped in a dinger of eight percent and there was little said. We didn’t even make an excuse like paying off the provincial debt...it just seemed like a good thing at that time and its paid off handsomely.
No one ever even mentions the PST in the same breath as the hated GST.
Getting back to the matter at hand, we can’t tell the media that the raise was necessary to create a salary that will attract a new more learned and sophisticated type person to govern our fair province. We know, in our hearts, that we have a lock on these jobs and that nothing will change because of the lethargy of the electorate.
If we don’t pass this now we will have to wait until next spring just before our four month summer break. We know it will pass then because no one wants to waste warm weather debating stuff like this. Besides, it will mean a hundred grand less for each of you.
Maybe we can put this raise in with the non-taxable part of our salary - treat it as an annual gift, so to speak - then we wouldn’t be bothered having to change our tax calculation with a new tax bracket.
I see some of the reps from the remote reaches of the province want to refuse the increase. Good idea! It makes good press back home. Brings back memories of the old Federal Reform Party who said they would never accept the “golden parachute” retirement package.
Never happened! They got their feet in the trough same as the rest and even went so far as to join another party to avoid embarrassment. Nice gesture though, NDP!!
No one can stop us; we run our own pay scheme. I can almost guarantee that by the time we reconvene in the New Year the common folk will have accepted our newfound wealth as a way of life.
Ready for the vote? All those in favour of a twenty five percent pay hike say “Aye”. Sounds good enough. Let’s finish this off to make it a law so we can get out and start the Yuletide festivities.
Oh, by the way, in anticipation of this action, the finance department is working on a bill for presentation in May before summer holidays. It will show a ”substantial” tax cut on horse shoes and hula hoops. Included and cleverly hiding will be a “modest” personal income tax increase. The tax magicians can hide this easily in the income tax for for 2007. No one can figure them out anyway.
–Jim Crackel,
Rainy River