Brief Presented on MLA Wages, Allowances and Benefits

The Manitoba Federation of Labour has presented a brief to the Commissioner for the Legislative Assembly dealing with wages, allowances and benefits provided to members of the provincial legislature. In the brief, the MFL supports the process enacted in Manitoba in June, 2005 to bring resolution to the MLA pension fiasco by establishing an independent commissioner to make a final and binding decision. The brief advocates that the same arms-length process should be adopted to address other MLA compensation issues to remove the debate from the political forum where it is vulnerable to the winds of politics.

In the brief presented by the MFL, the position is taken that there should not be a wage scale so low that serving the public good requires significant financial sacrifice, but warns against pretending that we need to compete with senior executive salaries in either the public or private sectors. The brief includes information on the salaries and benefits provided to MLAs across Canada.

The brief concludes that there is absolutely no doubt that the debate over what are fair and equitable MLA pay and allowance policies will continue unabated for the foreseeable future. It acknowledges that setting aside political considerations will be extremely difficult for elected MLA's. The MFL believes that establishing fair policies will only become possible when the process is removed from the partisan political arena.

For the full text of the brief presented by the MFL, you can download a PDF copy of the brief.