Liberals’ secret pension bonanza is all too typical

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The Trudeau Liberals’ plan to rob Canadians of up to $120 million to give 80 rookie MPs a lifetime pension is falling apart.

The NDP is so upset by the shady deal to give MPs preferential treatment that they want to scrap the proposal put forward by the senior partner in their parliamentary pact.

The question now is whether Prime Minister Justin Trudeau will change course – something he is not good at – or fight to keep the dubious deal in place to line the pockets of 80 MPs at a time when Canadians are finding it difficult to buy food and pay the rent.

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The liberal machinations around this pension payment have bordered on the disastrous from the beginning; not so much the smell of financial irregularity but rather an acrid, fetid smell.

The mechanism for achieving the potential windfall was hidden in an election bill and we now discover that the NDP wasn’t even aware of the Liberals’ true purpose.

Bill C-65, The Electoral Participation LawIt aims at electoral reform, but contains a clause to delay the elections scheduled for next year by one week, until Monday, October 27.

The reason, saying the liberals, was to avoid a clash with the Hindu festival of Diwali.

But the extra days have a major ripple effect that the Liberals weren’t all that interested in making public.

It meant that 80 MPs elected for the first time on October 21, 2019 would be entitled to a lifetime pension after serving six years. If the elections were held on the original date, October 20, 2025, those MPs would not qualify and would be one day short of the six-year mark.

Of the 80 deputies, 32 are conservative, 22 liberal, 20 from the bloc and six from the NDP.

However, if current voting intentions around a federal election are reflected next year, many Liberal seats would disappear. So freshmen liberals have more skin in the game when it comes to pensions.

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What is the effect of delaying the elections? A $120 million hit to Canadians, says the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF).

With annual pensions ranging between $32,000 and $49,000, the $120 million would be the estimated lifetime costs, says the FTL.

“Parliamentarians should not manipulate the system for their own financial benefit at the expense of (taxpayers),” says Franco Terrazzano, federal director of the CTF, in a video on X, formerly Twitter.

“If MPs don’t want to look suspicious, they shouldn’t be doing shady things like this.”

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said he “does not feel good” about the election date changing.

“I don’t think elections should be held on Diwali,” he said. said the Alex Pierson podcast. “But of course it’s not about Diwali, they want to receive their pensions.

“They are putting their pensions and salaries before those of Canadians who cannot pay their bills. “It’s another example of how Trudeau is not worth it.”

The liberals’ reason for delaying the election to avoid a religious holiday also seems disingenuous. As the CTF, the Conservatives and now the NDP point out, hold the elections a week or a month before and avoid both the holiday and the triggering of the $120 million bonanza.

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On Thursday, Lisa Marie Barron, the NDP’s critic of democratic institutions, said her party wanted to rule out changing the election date.

“I’ve had constituents and Canadians bring this to my attention and I just want to make it very clear that now is not the time for Members of Parliament to be thinking about their own financial benefit,” he said. said CTV.

“We want to make sure that we are very clear from the beginning on the amendments that are necessary so that we can move forward on this.”

Curiously, he called it “problematic” that the Liberals never mentioned pension payments when the parties argued over the bill.

“This information was not provided when this part of the bill was presented to us,” he said in the CTV interview.

Either the liberals forgot to tell their democratic partners, or the dissimulation around the pension windfall was already underway.

There may be those who sympathize with the MPs for missing out on a lucrative pension for one day, but they can take comfort in knowing that the MPs will still receive compensation of around $100,000 each.

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In addition, parliamentarians, ministers and the prime minister received a considerable salary. increase this year.

Parliamentarians saw their salaries increase by $8,500 to $203,100, making them the second highest-paid elected official in the world, surpassed only by Americans.

Debate on the electoral bill was due to begin on Friday and Barron will urge his parliamentary colleagues to vote against changing the date.

How will the liberals react? It will be informative to see.

When Trudeau was elected in 2015, fiance shed “more light on the government” and be “honest, open and sincere.”

But the ploys to try to secure a boost to MPs’ pensions reveal that, rather than being open and honest, Trudeau’s Liberals have been sneaky and deceptive.

Not to mention being in poor condition.

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