Contradicting an opinion from the Ethics Commissioner of the National Assembly, the Liberal Party of Quebec asserts that the eagerness of elected representatives of the National Assembly to grant themselves a 30% increase in their remuneration does not create any appearance of conflict of interest.
Liberal MP Monsef Derraji rejected the analysis of Commissioner Ariane Mignolet, according to whom elected officials placed themselves in this delicate position by increasing their basic compensation from $101,561 to $131,766.
“Mme Mignolet has his point of view. I don’t share it,” he said.
Mr. Derraji defended the way of proceeding which led the PLQ to support a bill proposed by the Coalition Avenir Québec in June, which took up the recommendations of a committee made up of two former elected officials and an expert in human ressources.
“Without agreeing with her in a partisan way, she has the right to her opinion,” he said. Was there a conflict of interest? Look, we precisely wanted to avoid future conflicts of interest. »
Tuesday, Mme Mignolet once again recommended that elected officials put in place an independent mechanism to determine their remuneration in order to avoid any appearance of conflict of interest.
The commissioner ruled that the decision to grant herself a raise in June created the appearance of a conflict of interest. According to Mme Mignolet, it would have been better to delay its entry into force until after the next election.
In June, Québec solidaire (QS) and the Parti Québécois voted against the bill increasing remuneration. The elected officials of the PQ refused the controversial increase, as did the majority of those of the QS.
Contradictory position
On Wednesday, Mr. Derraji accused QS of being in a contradictory position since some of his elected officials accept part of the 30% increase.
“There are people who voted against it and they used this increase to pay their mortgage,” he said.
Since the adoption of the bill in June, elected officials have given the impression of not having made a final decision on their remuneration. This fall, they waived a $125 attendance bonus that they considered unjustified. The CAQ deputies want to suspend this year the automatic indexation of their compensation which follows the increases planned in the public sector.
Mr. Derraji did not give any indication of the position of his caucus on this last subject.
“I can’t begin to comment on hypotheses in the public arena,” he said.
The parliamentary leader of Québec solidaire, Alexandre Leduc, affirmed that his political party will advocate for remuneration to be addressed more broadly if the government ever comes back to suspend indexation for this year.
“We will not enter into fictitious scenarios, we will see what he will throw at us, but what is sure and certain is that, in any scenario, there must be the get this out of our hands and then have it submitted to an independent binding committee,” he said.
Last spring, QS proposed suspending indexation for the duration of the current four-year mandate.
Parti Québécois MP Joël Arseneau recalled that his party refused the 30% increase and will be content with the indexations that will be granted to public sector employees.
“We are going to take the equivalent of the average indexation obtained by Quebec public service workers,” he said. This is always our positioning. There, what we learn is that, in the law, there is an indexation clause that would apply this year, but we don’t want it either. »