CTF Outlines Recommendations Made to Lumley Pay Review Commission

CTF Report

Chart comparing political pensions across Canada

Chart comparing political compensation across Canada

OTTAWA: During a news conference on Parliament Hill today, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) released an 18-page position paper entitled: MP Compensation Reform: Tine to Adopt the STAF-F Principles, advocating fundamental changes to the pay and pension regime for MPs.

This past January the federal government appointed Trudeau-era cabinet minister, Ed Lumley, to chair a three-person panel to review compensation arrangements for parliamentarians and report back to parliament before mid-June. "Based on our meetings with the Lumley commission, we believe that closure can be brought to the acrimonious debate surrounding MP pay and pension reform if our recommendations are adopted," stated CTF federal director Walter Robinson. "The guiding principles of simplicity, transparency, accountability and fairness must underscore their work and recommendations."

Key recommendations in the CTF report include:

• Abolition of tax-free and travel status expenses for MPs and adjusting their base salaries upwards to account for full exposure to income taxes;
• Instituting a wage indexation factor for MP salaries based on the annual national average of private and public sector wage settlements;
• Implementing all changes after the next election to remove the conflict of interest in having MPs vote on their own salary increases;
• Winding up the gold-plated MP pension plan and replacing it with a matching dollar-for-dollar group RRSP scheme;
• Limiting the circumstances in which voluntarily retiring MPs can collect severance; and
• Limiting the involvement of former politicians in future compensation reviews.

"Over the past two decades, fundamental reform recommendations made by six previous review commissions were ignored. We are confident that the Lumley commission will incorporate our recommendations into their final report," added Robinson.

"MPs have never been held in such low esteem by the electorate as they are today. It's now or never for reform. By resolving the symbolic issue of pay and pension reform, MPs could build enormous political capital for themselves to tackle more substantive issues," concluded Robinson.