Accountability

29/06/2006, – click title for link

Dear member of parliament,

Just reading some “bloggs” from the internet and found this interesting news article about Government accountability, which I would consider a nail in the coffin of any who might say that MP base salaries should not be immediatly reduced by fifty per cent and all their perks, c.o.l.a. and pension’s cancelled completely.

Accountability ?

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*, Ontario, Canada
*

P.S. If this is the result of secret meetings among yourselves one might wonder the results of secret meetings you might have with foreigners.

For shame it took the Toronto Star to point this out to the public.

Quiet gift for MPsJun. 28, 2006. 01:00 AM

On Saturday, Canada Day, the rate on the Goods and Services Tax will fall from 7 per cent to 6 per cent.But you already knew that.The Conservative government has used every opportunity to tell you that if your family is typical, the GST cut will save you about $300 a year.But what you probably don’t know is that Members of Parliament have also given themselves something.

At a secret meeting May 1, Speaker Peter Milliken and the House leaders of the four parties decided to boost the MPs’ expense allowance for living in Ottawa by 20 per cent, from $20,000 to $24,000.Although the base salary for MPs now stands at $147,700,( increasing to over 167,000 in 2007) the attendees at the closed-door meeting concluded that to house themselves in Ottawa, the people’s representatives needed $2,000 (aprox. double the average cost to rent a luxury two bedroom condo) a month.

**As far-fetched as it sounds, what they did was comparable to a union writing and ratifying a new contract without even letting the negotiators for the employer into the room.**

#They didn’t issue a press release advising taxpayers. They didn’t call a press conference so the media could spread the good news.#

What they did was to wait more than a month, and release the minutes of their meeting last Friday, the day the House adjourned for the summer recess. (I thought Jean Chretien was retired)
What happened to the “new way of doing business” in Ottawa, to the promise of transparency to enable taxpayers to know how their money is being spent?

If MPs really did need another $4,000 to get by on : ( , they should have made the case to their employers — the taxpayers — and had the courage to defend that request, instead of doing a deal in secret, and keeping it under wraps until they could run away and hide for the summer.

Shame on the Conservatives. Shame on the Liberals. Shame on the Bloc Québécois. And shame on the New Democrats.