What's an MHA worth?

It's not the ideal time to hold public consultations. Mid-afternoon on a warm summer day is not conducive to enticing people to come inside and wait their turn to offer their opinions on complex matters.??

So, it wasn't surprising that only a couple of people showed up earlier this month in Clarenville at the first public hearing of the committee tasked to examine MHA salaries and benefits, partly by gauging citizens' opinion.

Hats off to Ern Warren for not only showing up, but for presenting a well-researched paper to which he had given a lot of thought.

Fred Mason of Bonavista ended up at the hearing as well, only because he had heard about it on the radio as he was driving to Clarenville. With a couple of hours to kill, he figured he'd sit in.

While attendance at the rest of the August hearings may improve, we suspect this is simply the worst possible time of the year for the general public to be tuned into such matters.

It's nearly the end of summer. It's vacation time. It's poor timing to think you can gauge a good variety of public comment on the matter. Perhaps that's the way government prefers it.

The committee was formed in May and has a deadline of Oct. 31 to produce a report. That deadline means they don't have a lot of time to spend on the road, talking to citizens.

Currently, Members of the House, are paid $92,580 a year. If they take on any extra duties - parliamentary secretary, caucus whip, committees, etc. - they get more. If they are appointed minister of a government department, they add another $50,000 to their annual salary.

Currently, according to the report completed by Justice Derek Green in the wake of the constituency spending scandal, MHAs in this province are the fifth highest paid in the nation. Newfoundland and Labrador MHAs get paid more than their counterparts in the oil-rich mecca of Alberta. And given the testimony this month at the trial of Jim Walsh, a former MHA who was one of those charged with fraud in that scandal, the citizens of this province have little stomach for increasing the salaries of MHAs.

If anything, public opinion would likely favour salary reductions. A salary in the range of $92,580 is generous by any standard. And we don't buy the argument that the job of MHA is so onerous and demanding as to warrant that level of pay. Each MHA has support staff, people who deal with calls from constituents and keep files on various issues. Some MHAs have constituency offices, with an employee that is, essentially, the first line of contact between constituents and the MHA.

And it's not as though the MHA is on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Even if they were - which they are not - anyone who seeks public office surely must understand that being a representative for the people is not a 9 to 5, Monday to Friday, routine. It is hard work.

So, those who seek it should be intelligent enough to weigh out what's expected of them and, after consideration of the salary and benefits, determine whether or not it's worth it.

Yes, MHAs deserve a fair salary. Yet they don't deserve a Cadillac system when the people they represent, who work just as hard to make a living, fall far behind them on the scale of income and benefits. While the panel includes three people who appear to have a high degree of expertise in corporate and public service matters, two of them are closely connected, through appointments, to the current government. Cathy Bennett is a member of the board of Nalcor, the provincial Crown corporation created by the Williams government, and sits on the board of directors of the Bull Arm Corporation. Joe O'Neil currently chairs the Provincial Standing Fish Price Setting Panel, also a creation of the current administration, and has served on various other boards and commissions.

Government might have gone a long way towards instilling faith in the process by including on the committee a common citizen - preferably someone with financial or social justice experience, who understands what it is to live on an average wage, and knows what's fair when it comes to a decent pay for a decent day's work.

Reprinted from Clarenville Packet