Bill 202 Legislative Assembly (Transition Allowance) Amendment Act, 2011

Conclusion

March 7, 2011

Mr. Anderson: Thank you, Mr. Speaker, and thank you to all members who participated in the debate. Obviously, I’m some-what disappointed with how it would seem that most of the members are going to be voting against this bill. I would com-mend the hon. members for participating in the debate and specifically my Wildrose colleagues and, of course, the hon. member from the NDP caucus for explaining why it is so important that we show fiscal leadership as we move forward and that this is a good start.

There have been some comments made that do need to be corrected regarding this committee. As we all know, the hon. Member for Lethbridge-East had a motion passed saying that we should have an independent committee look at legislative compensation and benefits. That was over a year ago. There has been some suggestion in here that the process for that committee has just been wending its way through the Members’ Services Committee and so forth, and that is just simply not the case. It is just simply not true.

In the Members’ Services Committee prior to the last meeting of the Members’ Services Committee there became some uncertainty as to what the status of this committee was at that current time. We had the Member for West Yellowhead say, you know, that we’re just waiting on the opposition members to give us some names for this independent committee. I’m sure I can speak on behalf of the NDP caucus and the Wildrose caucus when I say: absolutely, we have not received anything, any formal request, any request at all. We don’t even know what we would want. We don’t know the parameters. We don’t have any terms of reference whatsoever from the government side on this matter. To say that we’ve had that request is absolute malarkey.

I go specifically to the Hansard notes from two meetings ago. When this came up, the Speaker frankly and truthfully spoke exactly on what the status was of this committee at that time. He says:

This is the Legislative Assembly, and this is a committee of the Legislative Assembly. We are not the government of Alberta.

The motion urged the government to establish a committee.

The government of Alberta is, essentially, the cabinet.

My understanding from previous comments made in this particular meeting by [an hon. member] is that some discussion was held between the Premier and the Leader of the Official Opposition, and they were holding discussions. Then somebody asked [the Member for West Yellowhead]: well, does that mean other people can provide some names as well? I do believe that’s where [the Member for Airdrie-Chestermere] got that in-formation. It was very clear. I have received no indication from anyone in the government that we are to be looking at this mat-ter. This is not at this point in time a matter of the Members’ Services Committee.

I’m a little ambivalent about this. I indicated before that we always do our assessments. We always get everything up to date in terms of comparatives across the country, but we’ve done nothing further. I’m just pending, awaiting somebody to tell me that this is what we should be doing. Then I’ll put it together. That’s where we’re at.

So it’s very clear – very clear – from the Hansard, and we’ve received no correspondence from the government, from the Me-bers’ Services Committee, from anybody regarding such an independent committee. When we receive a letter from the government or from the Members’ Services Committee, from whomever, on how they would like us to participate, we will glad-ly participate at that point. But what really has happened here, clearly, is that the government is embarrassed that they’re voting against this bill, and they’re looking to blame someone other than themselves for voting against this bill. The fact of the matter is that we have done nothing on this issue over this particular Legislature the entire time we’ve been here. Nothing.

Well, we have done something. We’ve seen salaries go up 34 per cent, and that of course was done behind closed doors, in cabinet. On top of that, because of that 34 per cent increase, transition allowances will of course go through the roof because they’re based on the top three years of average salary. That’s the record of this government, to raise their salaries indiscriminately.