Seventeen months ago – on February 19, 2013 – Finance Minister Doug Horner announced a three-year salary freeze for public sector managers. He called it, “leading by example,” and said it was a symbolic move on the government’s behalf to get its spending under control.
Since then, this government has been besieged by what seems to be an endless parade of entitlement scandals afflicting politicians and top-level officials across government. These have resulted in a premier losing her job and public trust in this PC government hitting historic lows. If ever there was a time for this government to demonstrate to Albertans at least a shred of humility and respect for taxpayers, this would have been it.
Unfortunately, they have failed once again.
Last week, through an Order-in-Council, the PCs approved a salary hike for the highest-level government managers. These include all deputy ministers, officials in the Public Affairs Bureau and all of Alberta’s foreign representatives - including Gary Mar.
As you will recall, Mar is already Alberta’s highest paid government employee – with total compensation last year of a staggering $560,000.
We have no way of knowing whether we’re getting value for our money, but we’re giving him a raise.
Once again, this PC government is breaking another promise on what seems to be a never-ending list of broken promises.
But they took it a step further this time, trying to sneak it past Albertans. With many Alberta families now enjoying summer vacation with friends and family, the masterminds in the PC leadership figured they could get away with giving senior appointees and insiders a big raise and no one would notice.
They were wrong.
Clearly the PC culture of entitlement did not die with the Redford era. It lives on.
