Michael Smyth, The Province Published: Friday, May 11, 2007 Canada.com
The MLA pay-and-pension booty haul gets more bizarre and outrageous by the day. Yesterday, Internet blogger Sean Holman reported on a startling interview he had with Sandra Robinson, a member of the government-appointed panel that recommended a 29-per-cent pay raise and a fat new pension for MLAs. The University of B.C. business professor said she didn't agree with the pension recommendation and that the other two panel members made changes to the final report while she was out of the country! Robinson later tried to retract her comments to Holman (he had taped their on-the-record interview) and she hung up the phone when CKNW talk-show host Bill Good asked her about the issue during a live on-the-air interview.
What's that all about? But wait. It gets weirder. Vancouver lawyer Sue Paish, another member of the panel, later blamed Robinson's remarks on a lack of understanding of the very issues the group was asked to study. "Dr. Robinson had no experience working with pensions before," Paish said. "The whole area of compensation and pensions was quite a learning area for her." Say what? She doesn't know much about pension and compensation issues? Then why, oh why, was she on a panel deciding MLAs' pensions and compensation -- decisions that will cost B.C. taxpayers millions of their dollars? Robinson knew enough about pensions, however, to feel uncomfortable with the gold-plated variety eventually recommended by her panel colleagues.
This panel and its recommendations are now officially a big joke. Its report should be tossed into the blue recycling box and a new, fair, open and transparent process should be established.But that simply isn't going to happen. Why? Because your hard-working politicians want the booty, that's why. Liberal house leader Mike de Jong shrugged off the panellists' squabbling yesterday and said the government will plow full-steam-ahead with the cash grab. Good thing those razor-fanged NDP pit bulls are there to put the bite on these greedy Liberals, right? Wrong! The NDP Opposition had no comment yesterday on the panellists' bizarre exchange. No comment? How could this be? NDP Leader Carole James had earlier condemned the pay-and-pension package as too rich and vowed the New Democrats would refuse to take it. You'd think she and her NDP colleagues would be jumping on this story like a pack of wolves. After all, this justifies everything James said. But their silence only shows how hopelessly conflicted the New Democrats are. Despite their leader's bluster, the NDP MLAs want the money as much as the Libs and will probably take it.
The bottom line: The politicians figure this is all just a flash-in-the pan negative story. They'll take the loot and taxpayers will forget the whole thing in a day or two. Sadly, they're probably right.
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Consensus fleeting on pay-and-pension plan
By SEAN HOLMAN, 24 HOURS Vancouver.24 hrs.ca
Sue Paish, the chair of the controversial MLA pay-and-pension panel, confirmed yesterday the commission's final recommendations were hammered out while one member was in Europe. But Paish says Sandra Robinson - who was teaching in Austria at the time - was invited to participate in that discussion via teleconference. "And she just didn't want to discuss it. And I don't know why," said Paish, in an interview with 24 hours. Although she added that Robinson "made it very clear to us ... that she would not be agreeing with the report, she didn't want her name attached to it, she didn't want any reference to her in the report." Paish also confirmed the three-person panel had come to what she called a "preliminary" consensus the day before Robinson left for Europe.
But she had second thoughts about that consensus after reflecting on pension data received by the commission that same day. "I'm a person who takes all the data in and has to reflect, has to put it all together, has to balance things out," she explained. As a result, Paish says she "wasn't comfortable" going ahead with those recommendations - a conclusion fellow commissioner Josiah Wood also reached, independently. Paish agreed the commission was split on the issue of MLA pensions, with Robinson preferring a less generous package. Paish said Robinson doesn't have a lot of "experience" with pension plans or even the issue of "compensation." "And pensions are complicated. They are difficult concepts," she continued. "So there was a really steep learning curve on this for her." Although Paish did say Robinson was "really skilled in terms of survey questions and data analysis" and was "extremely helpful" to the commission in that respect.
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