The Legault government is the first to impose by law an increase in the base salary of deputies without the National Assembly being unanimous. Regardless, the whole deputation will be blamed.
The average voter does not dwell on the details of the parliamentary game, he simply remembers the result, in this case that the MPs granted themselves a $30,000 raise while he himself sees inflation eating away at his standard of living month after month.
The President of the Treasury Board, Sonia LeBel, was among the many absent from the Blue Room on Tuesday afternoon when Bill 24 was adopted. Mme LeBel may be a busy woman, but perhaps she thought it inappropriate to vote for a 30% raise when the government is offering 9% over five years to public sector workers.
It is true that, in general, public service is not recognized at its fair value. Whether this is justified or not, the taxpayer always finds that he does not get enough for his money, even if, as a consumer, he agrees to pay the often exorbitant wages paid to top guns from the private sector.
This perception is no doubt regrettable, but it would have required us to proceed gradually rather than imposing on the sly an increase disproportionate to what the members of the other provinces receive, an increase which can only reinforce the prejudice against the place of the political class.
When the Couillard government had proposed a comprehensive review of the remuneration of MNAs, including their pension plan, which would have been at zero cost to the taxpayer, the Coalition avenir Québec had nevertheless cried foul, when it will take henceforth foresee an additional expenditure of 5 million per year.
If, at least, we had taken the opportunity to prevent once and for all the repetition of a psychodrama that has been recurring for decades, by creating a truly independent committee, whose decision would be enforceable, instead of taking the pretext of the recommendation of an ad hoc advisory committee whose mandate had been deliberately restricted.
However, the minister responsible for the file, Simon Jolin-Barrette, sees this as an unacceptable limitation on the power of the legislator. If ever the committee wanted to be too generous to the MPs, someone would have to bring them to their senses, wouldn’t they?
The Ethics Commissioner, herself in favor of such a committee, has long wondered about the situation of conflict of interest to which MNAs expose themselves by determining their own remuneration. The Legault government has never seemed particularly concerned about questions of this order.
Unsurprisingly, none of the Caquiste deputies, who all benefit from allowances in addition to the base salary, wished to speak during the debate on the principle of Bill 24. The only one we heard from was the whip of the government, Éric Lefebvre, who complained that his workload prevented him from seeing his mother more than once a year. This is certainly distressing, but it is hard to see how the $42,000 increase to which he will be entitled will ensure him greater availability.
The government can reasonably hope that this sad episode will be forgotten when voters go to the polls in October 2026, but the changing and ambiguous positions of Québec solidaire could remain embarrassing.
The Member of Parliament for Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Alexandre Leduc, described this exercise of self-remuneration as a “violation of all the basic principles of ethics”, but some of his colleagues nevertheless intend to keep part of it and distribute the rest to organizations. of their constituency.
The MP for Maurice-Richard, Haroun Bouazzi, who is part of the group, was asked what percentage seemed acceptable to him. This will be the subject of private discussions with his wife, he explained, while ensuring that he will act with the greatest transparency.
He and his colleagues would do well to agree on a given percentage, otherwise it will be a pleasure to compare, from one year to another, the generosity of each other. The three PQ MPs, who are the only ones to have to settle for the base salary, solved the problem by adopting as a scale the increases to which public sector employees will be entitled.
Paradoxically, the Liberals, who accepted the government proposal from the outset, hardly had to justify themselves. In fact, it should rather worry them. No matter the subject, no one seems to be interested in what the Liberal Party of Quebec thinks or says anymore.