OTTAWA — The Harper government has quietly pushed through pay increases for senior government officials, sparking criticisms that it is failing to live up to its pledge for disclosure and accountability. Senior executives, which include deputy ministers, have been given a 2.5 per cent raise on their base salary, while heads of Crown corporations will receive increases of 3 per cent. The government executives will also get a boost of 1.1 per cent to their bonus packages — money known as “at-risk” pay that is due to them should they meet a series of goals and objectives.
The hikes were listed on the treasury board website earlier this month, but not announced in a general news release, a move that has upset government critics….
“The bottom line is you have a government here that did everything it could to ensure this increase stayed below the radar screen,” said Joe Williamson of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
“What’s got my goat is that this is a government that was elected to be more transparent and accountable.”
I can’t get TOO indignant about this: after all, they did quietly sneak it onto a website somewhere -that works, right? You regularly scan the Treasury Board site over coffee, just like me? And heck, with Beloved Leader spurning the media, it’s just so HARD to get a message like this out without having those unsympathetic communist reporters asking awkward questions.
But I have to ask. A lot of you voted for these guys because you actually wanted greater openness, greater transparency. So far Harper has rebuffed Ethics Commissioner Shapiro, diluted some provisions of the Accountability Act and shuffled the Access to Information provisions off to a Parliamentary Committee, decided to snub the Press Gallery, gagged his cabinet ministers, muzzled his caucus (we’ve heard the leash snap several times in the last few months)…it kinda goes on and on.
But I’m sure there are plenty of examples out there illustrating the New Openness you voted for. So…what would our Conservative friends say are Steve’s greatest achievements in the area of enhanced transparency?
A few weeks back I got a few dozen cents raise on my summer contract with StatsCan that I didn’t know was coming! They don’t even tell their employees (not that I’m complaining, though like the GST rebate I wouldn’t care if I didn’t get it, but I’m happy when I see the extra few bucks a week on the pay cheque).