Tagged: MLAs’ expenses
Justice for Dave Wilson
Perhaps something is wrong with me, but I feel bad for Dave Wilson, and faintly nauseous at the mob clammoring for his neck. Wilson f**ked up — spectacularly and inexcusably. In doing so, he violated a public trust and brought disgrace upon himself and upon democratic institutions already in public repute so low as to undermine civil society.
Consider also what Wilson has lost: a dream job that was probably his as long as he wanted it; his home; his family (or parts of it, to judge from his brother-in-law’s published comments). He has suffered public humiliation that is hard to watch. He will likely go to jail.
Consider too that Wilson resigned promptly. He pled guilty and — apparently — co-operated with authorities, behaviour that saved the justice system far more money than he stole.
Many have voiced outrage over Wilson’s continuing eligibility for his MLA’s pension, but any relevance is spurious. Leave aside the fact that revoking his pension, if such were legal, would mainly harm his wife and children, whose suffering must already be vast. Remember that Wilson earned that pension, according to the rules, during 10 years service as what most describe as a good MLA. Revoking it makes no more sense than any other random, vindictive retribution the mob might conjure. Leave his punishment to an impartial judge, who must weigh all the facts and make a decision rooted in the rule of law.
I hope and expect a judge will treat Wilson fairly, without regard for those who revel in calls for the noose. If His Lordship tempers justice with a soup-son soupçon of mercy, it’ll be OK by Contrarian.
MLAs’ pay and public begrudgery, redux
Back on February 15, Contrarian had the temerity to opine that the MLAs’ expense scandal was pretty small potatoes—more a matter of public begrudgery than actual wrongdoing. This evoked private expressions of appreciation and gratitude from MLAs and political aides of all parties—and howls of indignation from readers (here, here, and here).
Events swiftly made my apologia seem naively over-generous. Two MLAs resigned, a third was kicked out of government caucus, and Premier Darrell Dexter, who built his career on his seemingly perfect ear for public sensibilities, turned suddenly, stubbornly, and uncharacteristically tone-deaf when his own personal expenses fell under scrutiny.
Much of what I said remains true and warrants repeating.
- It’s invidious to conflate legitimate expenses for riding offices, and travel to and from Halifax, with salary, and call it all “compensation.”
- The circumstances of individual MLAs — remoteness from Halifax, size of riding, local culture of constituent service, committee duties — are almost infinitely varied. Any set of rules governing expenses will necessarily be arbitrary, and will beget examples that seem unreasonable.
- MLAs incur many expenses that are not receiptable They are hit up constantly for donations, gifts, handouts.
And:
The public nurses an attitude of begrudgery toward politicians, and the media fans these embers at every opportunity. This is not our most attractive quality, and it makes it almost impossible for MLAs — who by definition must set their own salaries — to pay themselves appropriately for the work they do. So MLAs have, unwisely but understandably, developed a variety of secretive ways to pad their allowances.
All true, I still think. But I should have remembered Jeremy Bentham’s famous maxim:
In the darkness of secrecy sinister interest, and evil in every shape, have full swing. Only in proportion as publicity has place can any of the checks applicable to judicial injustice operate. Where there is no publicity there is no justice.
It should not have surprised anyone, least of all Contrarian, that sinister interest had flourished in the darkness of secrecy. It certainly didn’t surprise my readers, though it did infuriate them.
A few days after I posted my comments, Dexter’s maladroit handling of his own financial transgressions became the focus of the story. Word leaked out that taxpayers had been unknowingly footing the $3500 annual bill for his Barristers’ Society dues. The premier sought to justify this practice by asserting that the late Tory House Leader Michael Baker, also a lawyer, had suggested the arrangement, as if good-ole-boy bipartisanship would make it all OK.
When this didn’t fly, Dexter grudgingly agreed to stop charging us for his fees, but declined to pay back money he already collected. And just by the way, now that he was picking up his own tab, a switch to inactive status, at $250 per year, seemed in order.
NDP insiders were privately chagrined at the brand damage caused by this cluelessness, and relieved when attention shifted to the almost comically sordid details of Trevor Zinck’s alleged financial misadventures. In Zinck’s case, for once, the party got out in front of the story, ousting him from caucus before the news broke.
A coda to the scandal played out on the last day of the session, when the media drew Dexter into speculating about whether the Auditor General Jacques Lapointe would or should name any MLA transgressors fingered in his soon-to-be-released forensic audit. Opposition leaders Stephen McNeil and Karen Casey had no trouble fielding this softball, forcing Dexter to reassemble the press corps for a clarification: He was in favor of naming names after all. Stay tuned.
The continuing saga has deepened already extravagant public cynicism about politicians, and sapped the New Democrats’ hard earned credibility as idealists. Both are sorry developments, in my lonely view. Our politicians face an array of issues requiring unpopular decisions, and it doesn’t help that so many citizens regard them as scoundrels.
[AllNovaScotia.com's Brian Flinn deserves credit for pursuing this story for months before the Auditor General hit pay dirt. And a hat tip to Nelson MacDonald, who challenged me to revisit this topic.]
MLAs’ pay and public begrudgery – time for a retraction?
In the wake of Glace Bay MLA Dave Wilson’s surprise resignation while under forensic audit of his expense claims, a young Contrarian friend asks if I’m ready to retract my post all but dismissing the expense brouhaha.
Answer: I’m getting there.
We don’t yet know the story behind Wilson’s abrupt departure, and I don’t wish to imply otherwise. But even before that news broke Friday, the premier’s ham-fisted attempts to resolve criticism surrounding his expensing of Barristers’ Society dues had me rethinking the issue.
Contrarian’s alter-ego is currently submerged in a writing assignment, so I will merely flag the topic for later elaboration.
MLAs’ pay and public begrudgery – yet more feedback
Previous installments here, here, and here. A longish dissent from reader Jay Wilson:
The way you make it sound, we, the public, are the ones who indirectly caused this problem by forcing our poor beleaguered elected representatives underground and into making the kinds of reckless spending judgements they made. I take issue with that.
As you said in your blog, “Upon taking office, most MLAs set aside established careers in exchange for a job with far less security than comparable positions in the private or public sector.” That once was the case, for a good reason. Once upon a time, MLAs made very little money as elected representatives. To offset their costs of travel, constituency responsibilities, etc, they were given expense money. Fine.
Then more people from different walks of life started getting involved in politics who didn’t necessarily make as much as the usual assortment of doctors, lawyers and businesspeople who had mostly made up the elected ranks. Not to mention the complaints from the very sorts of individuals you referenced: People from higher-paying occupations who said it wasn’t enough to live on and they could make more in the private sector.
Over time, a new sensibility developed along the lines of “Let’s pay them a better salary so that they can afford to live while serving our best interests.” In the interests of fairness, the thought occurred to some that the money spent on expense accounts and the like could be decreased as now these elected officials would actually be making more. That’s not what happened.
In fact, as salaries continued to increase, so did money for expenses and then it diversified into a whole host of different expense categories. MLAs were getting money for everything and the kitchen sink, and who made these changes? Who increased their salaries and expense money? Who made the rules so deliberately ambiguous and full of holes so wide you could drive a tank through them? They did, behind closed doors and in quick legislative motions, with cursory mentions in the local press for the most part.
Please don’t try to excuse MLAs for their sorry behaviour. This is about three things: A pronounced sense of entitlement, a disconnect from reality and pure abject greed. Maybe it isn’t on the same scale as the scandals in Britain and even Newfoundland, but those three things are present in each situation and they are things we should all be vigilant against.
MLAs’ pay and public begrudgery – feedback
Contrarian reader Kirby McVicar responds to our post on MLAs’ pay and public begrudgery:
The question that springs to my mind is: “Who are you and what have you done with Parker Donham?”
Resigned MLA Richard Hurlburt
What I hear you say is, ”Well, MLA’s only stole a little bit, and it’s the media’s and the public’s fault for not providing adequate salary.” Are you serious?
What does this line of thinking say to all the honest MLA’s who did not steal from the public purse: “You missed out on an opportunity we, the public and the media, set up for you. How stupid of you!”
I agree that politicians need an independent body to set remuneration policy that is binding, but this issue should not be confused with theft from the public purse.
Where is the CBC Parker, from the “Harry and Parker Show” who would have spent 15 minutes railing against such a rationale? Has the election of an NDP government outed you?
I was out of the country, but wasn’t it a Tory MLA who resigned? After the jump, more reader reaction.
MLAs’ pay and public begrudgery
A friend asked recently why I had not written about the MLA expenses flap, and I confessed that I have trouble summoning much outrage over the issue. While I admire Brian Flinn’s dogged pursuit of the facts in AllNovaScotia.com, I fear that the public and the media are almost as much to blame for the problem as our lawmakers.
The public nurses an attitude of begrudgery toward politicians, and the media fans these embers at every opportunity. This is not our most attractive quality, and it makes it almost impossible for MLAs — who by definition must set their own salaries — to pay themselves appropriately for the work they do. So MLAs have, unwisely but understandably, developed a variety of secretive ways to pad their allowances.
A few observations seem in order:
- On the facts adduced so far, an audit of the compensation received by 60-odd present and former MLAs turned up a small handful of obvious abuses, amounting to a few thousand dollars each, and a larger number of errors in accounting or judgment, amounting to less than a few hundred dollars each. Total recovery: far less than the cost of the audit.
- Compared to recent expense scandals in Britain and Newfoundland, this is thin gruel. No Nova Scotia MLA built a swimming pool at public expense.
- The media’s habit of lumping salary and expense reimbursement together is invidious. We expect MLAs to have constituency offices, and these require rent, salaries, furniture, postage, phones, electricity, computers, and sundry office equipment. We expect MLAs to travel frequently between their ridings and the capital, and this imposes real costs. To add these legitimate expenses to their base salary, and cite the total as “compensation,” is absurd.
- While it is reasonable to expect MLAs to support large expenses with receipts, I am not sure I want lawmakers spending their time adding up slips from Tim Horton’s.
- Many costs imposed on MLAs are not receiptable. You and I can brush past the minor hockey player in the supermarket checkout line, but an MLA cannot. They are hit up constantly for donations, gifts, handouts.
- The circumstances of individual MLAs — remoteness from Halifax, size of riding, local culture of constituent service, committee duties — are almost infinitely varied. Any set of rules governing expenses will necessarily be arbitrary, and will beget examples that seem unreasonable.
- The shaming of the premier into reimbursing the treasury for the cost of a leather briefcase was petty and unworthy of us.
- When I began covering Nova Scotia politics 36 years (!) ago, an MLA’s job was considered part-time; most maintained other occupations to supplement their income. Not so today.
- Upon taking office, most MLAs set aside established careers in exchange for a job with far less security than comparable positions in the private or public sector. A 2009 report on legislative salaries in Newfoundland and Labrador found that the average tenure for MLAs in that province over the preceding 20 years was 7.5 years.
- Nova Scotia cabinet ministers make less than the deputies who report to them. Backbench MLAs make less than civil servants several steps down in the hierarchy.
- Most MLAs work exceptionally long hours, especially in rural and Cape Breton ridings, where a culture of constituency service is the norm.
Yes, the compensation for MLAs should be open and above board, but the witless moralizing that has dominated the current brouhaha illustrates one reason it is not. I hope this will lead to a system in which MLAs receive a single, generous but all-encompassing salary, additional pay for cabinet service and a very short list of special house duties, and reimbursement for legitimate expenses, supported by receipts where practicable.
But if it does not, we can shoulder some of the blame ourselves. To paraphrase Pogo, “I have seen the enemy, and it is partly us.”
