Please don’t panic until you’ve read the entire column!
If it turns out that the 11 executives of the Caisse de Depot et Placement alone make more money than all 125 MPs in the National Assembly, it is high time to allow our MPs some wage catching up.
CEO Charles Emond and his ten senior employees received approximately $25 million in compensation (salary and bonuses) in 2022, including $4.13 million for the Big Boss.
MPs will share around $20.4 million in compensation and allowances in 2023, including $208,200 in salaries for Prime Minister François Legault.
The CEO of the Caisse earned in 2022 almost 20 times the salary that the head of the state of Quebec will earn in 2023.
With an average per capita compensation (salary and bonus) of $2 million, the five vice presidents and five subsidiary managers reporting to Charles Emond pocketed just over 11 times the salary of Quebec ministers in 2022 year to be obtained. $177,732).
Let’s move on to another comparison that is more global. At the Caisse, average compensation for 1,573 employees in 2022 was $316,592, including $122,695 in bonuses.
How much will a provincial MP make this year? His salary is $101,561. Uh yes! The elected officials who run the province, with its departments, public institutions and state-owned companies, earn three times less than the average salary of Caisse employees. Worse still, our elected officers earn less than the average bonus paid to Caisse employees.
- Listen to the economics column of Michel Girard, economics columnist at the Journal de Montréal and the Journal de Québec, on the microphone of Philippe-Vincent Foisy QUB radio :
Besides that…
I therefore support the salary increase of around 30% that the government of François Legault is offering to Members of the National Assembly on a silver platter.
Of course, voting for a roughly 30% pay rise, as members of the National Assembly are planning, is frowned upon in this inflationary phase when the Quebec government is in the midst of negotiations with government officials and semi-government employees.
And it’s also very badly perceived by all private sector workers, many of whom need all their spare change to make ends meet.
I agree that the timing of offering MEPs such an increase is problematic!
And that explains why Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois of Québec Solidaire and Pascal Bérubé of the Parti Québécois expressed their opposition to the salary increase proposed by the Legault government.
- Don’t miss the economics column by Michel Girard, economics columnist for the Journal de Montréal and the Journal de Québecm, from Monday to Friday at the microphone of Philippe-Vincent Foisy QUB radio :
Concrete
The proposed increase certainly seems significant. But you have to know that it is based on years of catching up.
And it’s an independent advisory committee commissioned by the Bureau of the National Assembly to analyze MPs’ salary conditions, which advocates such a catch-up salary in its most recent report.
What are the new salary terms proposed in Bill 24 just tabled by Simon Jolin-Barrette, Speaker of Parliament and Minister for Justice?
• Increased Congressman base salary from $101,561 to $131,766
• Minister salaries increased from $177,732 to $230,591
• Increase Prime Minister’s salary from $208,200 to $270,120
With good reason, Economy Secretary Pierre Fitzgibbon believes that better salaries for MPs and ministers will attract people into politics. One thing is for sure: it can be helpful in recruiting potential candidates.
The new President of the FTQ, Magali Picard, has just spoken out against the Legault government’s proposed pay rise for MPs.
WHEN THE FTQ MORALEN STARTS…
“Yes, the work of an MNA is demanding and requires that they devote many hours to their constituents, but strictly speaking, the first duty of an elected official is to serve the people, not serve himself. The CAQ government should at least have the decency to wait until agreement is reached with an offer that makes sense for its own employees before self-administering pay rises and bonuses in excess of 30%, some judgement, please. “, She said.
Ms Picard finds it inconsistent to see the Legault government implementing a 30 percent increase in MPs’ pay for a minimum salary of $131,766, while “the same government only grants public sector workers a pay rise of 1.8 percent per year for a five-year period.” represent whose average salary is barely $44,000.”
Speaking of inconsistency, I’d like to remind Ms. Picard that the five executives of her Solidarity Fund shared the astronomical sum of $2.6 million in “salary and stock” in fiscal 2022, i.e. an average salary of $522,590 per executive.
The directors of the Fonds de solidarité FTQ thus earn 12 times the average salary of public sector union members affiliated with the FTQ!
And if it turns out that the FTQ considers it normal to pay the heads of their Solidarity Fund an average salary of 2.5 times the Prime Minister’s salary, I don’t think I’m in a position to support the remuneration of the head of the Solidarity Fund to criticize government whose responsibility is a thousand times greater.
