Politicians should question their own pensions
What is indisputably unacceptable, however, is his and his colleagues’ (in both major parties) apparent refusal to review the efficacy of their own fat retirement packages – something they promised taxpayers they’d do before the end of the current legislative session.
Still, in a stunningly crass maneuver and entirely oblivious to their larger moral obligations, on Tuesday the Tories set their favorite attack dog at the throat of Jacqueline Robichaud – the 75-year-old former wife of the late Louis J. Robichaud – who receives a government-sanctioned stipend of $2,000 a month.
At issue, declared Volpe, is neither the amount nor the identity of the recipient. It’s the apparent illegality. “There’s nothing wrong with the person asking for it,” he crowed to reporters. “The problem is there’s no authority that I can see where the money should be coming from.” Moments later, he ratcheted up the rhetoric: “While many taxpayers do not have the means to plan for retirement and others in the private sector have seen a major decrease in their benefits, friends of the Liberals receive pensions to which they are not entitled.”
The Grits, and others, responded with predictable outrage. Finance Minister Greg Byrne insisted the payments, dating back to 2007, comprise “a special case”. It’s true, he conceded, under normal rules, the spouse of a deceased MLA is not entitled to benefits if the two married after the latter’s term of office (Louis Robichaud was premier of the province in the 1960s; he and Jacqueline wedded in the 1990s).
But, he insisted, the arrangement was approved by Cabinet, authorized by the Financial Administration Act and funded through the general account. “To question the eligibility of the spouse of a former MLA is beyond the pale,” he thundered. “It brings into question the leadership of the party.”
Not to be left out, the NDP’s campaign director, Dominic Cardy, added: “It is astonishingly sleazy that the Alward Conservatives would try to score political points by making an election issue out of a widow’s pension. Any allegations about wrongdoing involving a private citizen should be dealt with privately.”
All of which seems just a tad self-serving. After all, these are taxpayers’ monies, and, until now, the public has been deliberately excluded from that which Mrs. Robichauld clearly feels are personal matters. When contacted by the Saint John Telegraph-Journal, she said, “I don’t know why I shouldn’t receive it. . .They passed a law and they said I’m allowed to receive the pension. I don’t know – is someone trying to make trouble for me?”
It’s a good question, which might properly occur to any one of us these days.
Frankly, I worry far more about the muck-raking and hay-making machine that provincial politics has become in recent years than I do about my paltry contribution to a senior citizen’s retirement fund. If she needs it, let her have it. Just don’t hide it. And, once revealed, don’t turn it into an election issue on the despicable and breathtakingly stupid notion that any of this means anything to anybody, except an unjustifiably embarrassed old woman.
The Liberals and the Progressive Conservatives are now months overdue in reviewing their 2008 decision to hike the base salaries of MLAs to $85,000 from $45,757 and pour millions more into public pensions. According to a CBC report last March, “The New Brunswick plan now pays a $30,000-a-year pension after eight years of service, up from $16,500, and $76,000 after 20 years, almost double the previous $41,000 under the old guidelines. The cost of funding the plan has grown by nearly $1 million a year, according to a 2009 actuarial evaluation.”
If compensation must become a campaign platform, let Mr. Volpe’s scrutiny begin here. Again, he will not be completely wrong by raising a few inconvenient questions.
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