Edmonton Journal ePaper

GG GOT $40,000 PAY BOOST SINCE 2019

EARNS $342,100 Raises getting higher than pre-pandemic

BRYAN PASSIFIUME

The salary for Canada's Governor General got a $40,000 pay bump during the COVID-19 pandemic, as millions of Canadian workers faced uncertainty, unemployment and economic hardship.

Documents provided to the National Post by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) from the Privy Council Office show the base salary for the Governor General increased from $302,800 per year in 2019 to $342,100 in 2022 — a 13-per-cent pay bump.

Julie Payette, appointed in 2017, was the governor general until her resignation in January 2021, amid a scandal over her workplace behaviour.

The position was vacant until July 2021, when Mary Simon was sworn in.

The pay increases in 2021 and 2022 were higher than raises given prior to the pandemic.

The annual increases are determined according to a formula based on average wages in the workforce.

Rideau Hall and the Privy Council Office both noted that the Governor General's salary is determined by the government.

In 2018, the position paid $294,600. The salary increased 2.7 per cent to $302,800 in 2019, followed by a 2.4-per-cent increase in 2020, bringing the salary to $310,100.

That was followed by a 5.9 per cent raise in 2021 to $328,700, and another 4.7 per cent increase to bring their salary to $342,100 in 2022.

Remuneration for the viceroy is outlined in the Governor General's Act, which sets the job's base salary at $270,602 as of Jan. 1, 2013, subject to mandatory annual increases.

According to legislation, raises are set by multiplying the current base salary by either 107 per cent, or “the percentage that the industrial aggregate for the first adjustment year is of the industrial aggregate for the second adjustment year,” whichever is lesser.

Maintained by Statistics Canada, the industrial aggregate index measures the average salary and earnings by the Canadian labour force.

According to the Privy Council Office, no salary was collected while the job sat vacant between Payette's resignation and Simon's swearing in.

Public accounts as of the end of the 2021 fiscal year showed projected expenditures for the viceregal's salary at $308,972, which included Simons' earnings for the balance of 2021 and 2022.

Likewise, the post-payette vacancy also reduced salary expenditures at Rideau Hall to $227,785 in 2022.

Questions over how much Rideau Hall costs Canadians is an ever-present issue in Canadian politics.

Being appointed as governor general comes with a post-retirement pension of $150,000 annually, plus an annual $206,000 taxpayer-funded retirement expense account that extends until six months after their death.

The retirement expense account, enacted in 1979, was meant to support public duties put upon retired viceroys after leaving Rideau Hall.

Last year, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation calculated the pensions for all five surviving former viceroys as representing an expenditure of $18.7 million, based on each person collecting benefits until the age of 90.

Payette's early departure put the question of remuneration back in the spotlight, with Conservative Senator Claude Carignan tabling a bill to prevent governors general from collecting retirement benefits until they've served in the job for at least five years.

That bill passed first reading in November 2021.

Franco Terrazzano, federal director for the CTF, questioned the practice of automatically basing raises for high-profile positions like governor general on legislated formulas, rather than more tangible metrics like performance, time in office or inflation.

“Can the government prove that the Governor General is providing taxpayers with $40,000 in extra value?” he asked.

Bloc Québécois MP Rhéal Fortin described a $40,000 raise for a job that largely consists of attending social functions as “beyond reason.”

“While the population tightens its belt coping with inflation, the Governor General squanders public funds on $100,000 in (inflight) catering costs and completely unjustifiable increases,” Fortin said in French in a statement to the National Post.

“The position of the Bloc Québécois is clear: symbolic function, symbolic salary. We must put an end to this waste of public money and reduce the wages of this archaic function to a minimum.”

NP

en-ca

2023-02-07T08:00:00.0000000Z

2023-02-07T08:00:00.0000000Z

https://edmontonjournal.pressreader.com/article/281801403117926

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