MPs receive $3,300 boost to annual salary

Thestar.com
May 1, 2019
Tim Naumetz

Members of Parliament received a pay hike this month that many of their constituents might envy.

The $3,300 increase on April 1 took their basic annual salary to $178,900 for 2019, a jump of nearly 2 per cent from $175,600 last year.

The House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Oct. 15, 2015. MPs annual pay has increased $3,300 taking their basic annual salary to $178,900 for 2019, a jump of nearly 2 per cent from $175,600 last year.

It was an automatic yearly adjustment, based on a government aggregate of private- and public-sector wage settlements maintained by Employment and Social Development Canada.

But the annual hikes, introduced in a reform of the pay system for MPs and Senators under Jean Chretien’s government in the early 2000s, have steadily increased MP salaries and edged even backbench MPs closer to the salaries enjoyed by the top few percentiles of income earners in Canada.

The latest Statistics Canada data put the 2016 threshold for the top 1 per cent of incomes in Canada at $226,200 in annual earnings. Based on statistics from Revenue Canada, the same data set for 2018 won’t be available until 2020,

Adding in additional salaries for the top office holders in Parliament, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Official Opposition Leader Andrew Scheer, Commons Speaker Geoff Regan and all of Trudeau’s 34 cabinet ministers are past the 2016 Statistics Canada threshold.

Backbench MPs are well into the upper ranks of the top 5 per cent of income earners, which in 2016 began at the Statistics Canada threshold of $120,000 in annual earnings.

And, according to Statistics Canada data from 2016 on the top 1 per cent of income earners by province, backbench MPs even without additional salaries are in the top income percentile in the three Maritime provinces of Nova Scotia, New Brunswick and Prince Edward Island, where the top 1 per cent of income groups in 2016 ranged from $160,300 to $176,500. Manitoba and Quebec were close with 1-per-cent thresholds of $187,100 and $192,600 respectively.

Starting with the lowest level of extra pay for 56 opposition vice-chairs of 26 of the 27 Commons standing committees and one joint Commons-Senate committee whose annual extra salaries rose to $6,200 on April 1, more than half of the 238 Members of Parliament, a total of 186, receive additional salaries for House and party caucus positions.

The contingent of MPs getting an extra salary for House and caucus roles is bolstered by MPs who serve ministers as parliamentary secretaries, a total of 36 in the Trudeau government whose additional pay rose to $17,500.

The prime minister receives the equivalent of the basic MP indemnity as an extra salary, for a total income of $357,800. The House of Commons speaker and the leader of the Official Opposition both receive an additional salary of $85,500, as do cabinet ministers, for a combined pay of $264,400.

The leader of other recognized parties, currently only the NDP’s Jagmeet Singh, receives an additional salary of $60,000 on top of the basic indemnity, a term the Commons uses for MP remuneration aside from the extra salaries.

Senators, whose basic pay and additional salaries for extra work have always lagged MP pay and additional salaries, also received a $3,300 pay hike -- to $153,900 in 2019 from $150,600 last year.

The national spokesperson for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation appeared surprised at the amount of the parliamentary pay hike.

“I realize it’s based on an index, but a lot of Canadians are concerned about job security and income,” said the group’s federal director, Aaron Wudrick.

Wudrick said Parliament should put the annual pay hike to a vote, where MPs could choose to accept it or not.

“It seems like politicians get a much better deal than the people they’re governing,” said Wudrick.