The Liberals’ secretive pension bonanza all too typical

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The Trudeau Liberals’ plan to pick the pockets of Canadians of up to $120 million to give 80 newbie MPs a lifetime pension is unravelling. 

The NDP is so disgusted by the shady arrangement to give MPs the sweetheart deal 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 reverse course — something he is not good at — or fight to keep the dodgy deal to line 80 MPs pockets at a time when Canadians are finding it hard to buy groceries and pay rent. 

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The Liberal machinations around this pension payout have verged on the nefarious from the outset; not so much the whiff of financial impropriety more a pungent, foul-smelling odour. 

The mechanism to achieve the possible windfall was hidden in an election bill and the NDP, we now discover, were not even aware of the Liberals’ true purpose. 

Bill C-65, The Electoral Participation Act, is aimed at election reform but contains a clause to push back next year’s scheduled election by a week to Monday, Oct. 27. 

The reason, said the Liberals, was to avoid a clash with the Hindu festival of Diwali. 

But the extra days have an important knock-on effect which the Liberals were not so keen to publicize. 

It meant that 80 MPs first elected on Oct. 21, 2019 would qualify for a lifetime pension having served six years. If the election were held on the original date, Oct. 20, 2025, those MPs would not qualify — missing the six year mark by one day. 

Of the 80 MPs, 32 are Conservative, 22 Liberal, 20 are from the Bloc and six are NDP. 

However, current voting intentions around a federal election, if reflected next year, would see many Liberal seats disappearing. So the newbie Liberals have more skin in the game when it comes to pensions. 

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What’s the effect of pushing back the election? A $120 million hit to Canadians, says the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF). 

With annual pensions starting in the range of $32,000 to $49,000, the $120 million would be the estimated lifetime costs, says the CTF. 

“MPs should not be rigging the system for their own financial gain on the back of (taxpayers),” says Franco Terrazzano, federal director of the CTF, in a video on X, formerly Twitter. 

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

Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre said he is “not good” with the election date change. 

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

“They are putting their pensions and paycheques ahead of Canadians who can’t pay their bills. It’s another example of how Trudeau is not worth the cost.” 

The Liberals’ reason for pushing back the election to avoid a religious holiday also appears disingenuous. As The CTF, the Conservatives, and now the NDP, point out, make the election a week or a month earlier and avoid both the holiday and triggering the $120 million bonanza. 

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On Thursday, Lisa Marie Barron, the NDP’s democratic institutions critic, said her party wanted to scrap the election date change. 

“I’ve had constituents and Canadians bring this to my attention and I just want to make very clear that right now is not the time for members of Parliament to be thinking about their own financial gain,” she told CTV. 

“We want to make sure that we’re very clear from the onset around the necessary amendments for us to move forward on this.” 

Interestingly, she called it “problematic” that the Liberals never brought up the pension perk payout when the parties had discussions around the bill. 

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

Either the Liberals forgot to tell their democratic partners, or else the dissembling around the pension windfall was already underway. 

There may well be those sympathizing with the MPs for missing out on the lucrative pension by one day, however they can be comforted with the knowledge that the MPs will still get a severance payout of about $100,000 each. 

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Plus, MPs, ministers and the prime minister got a hefty pay raise this year. 

MPs saw their pay increase by $8,500 to $203,100 — making them the second highest paid elected official in the world, beaten only by Americans. 

Debate on the election bill was scheduled to start on Friday and Barron will be urging fellow parliamentarians to vote against moving the date. 

How will the Liberals react? It will be informative to watch. 

When Trudeau was elected in 2015 he pledged to shine “more light on government” and to be “honest, open, and sincere.” 

But the stratagems around trying to ensure a pension boon for MPs reveals that instead of open and honest the Trudeau Liberals have been furtive and deceptive.  

Not to mention shabby. 

National Post 

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