Written by Peter McIntyre 107.5 KISSFM Wednesday, 20 July 2011
BC politicians are having details about their pay and expenses put online for the first time, but Vernon's MLA says he has nothing to hide. 
Eric Foster (pictured) says his 21-thousand dollar living allowance in Victoria, plus travel costs of 24-thousand, were totally justified. "I don't have any issue with it at all. I travel on the cheapest tickets I can get, and do my very best to keep it down," He says the Interior MLA's always have higher expenses than those living closer to Victoria. Foster-- like all other MLA's-- had a base salary last year of 101,859, plus he made an extra $15, 278 as deputy party whip. Government documents show the Vernon Monashee MLA cost BC taxpayers about 162 thousand dollars last year, which included his salary, travel and living expenses. The total tab for Shuswap MLA George Abbott--who is a cabinet minister--was 202-thousand dollars including $44, 567 in travel costs as a minister, and another $ 8,532 as an MLA. Abbott got the basic pay of $101,859, plus a cabinet minister's extra salary of $33,650. In total, BC's 85 MLA's racked up 14 million dollars in costs and expenses last year.
2 comments:
Excessive and unreasonable
Agree with Anonymous. This is where it all starts. If its justifiable for a base MLA salary to be over $100K, then it is reasonable to pay Deputy Ministers and other fat cat bureaucrats excessively, too. They feed off each other these parasites. The toadying bureaucrats justify pay increases for politicians and the politicians reward their loyalty with huge pay increases.
I'd like to see figures detailing how much as a percentage of overall cost of labour for government is paid to politicians and the top 20% of wage earners in the bureaucracy.
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