Silent Thoughts Out Loud

When something is so wrong that it begs attention, it usually gets it - lots of it. The current issue of government MLA's receiving pay for 'sitting' on a committee that was not meeting is just such a wrong. The privileges and elections committee last met for fourteen minutes in November of 2008, and not for several years prior to that. It seems pretty obvious there was no work being done by this committee, and no reason to expect that any would be done. Yet month after month, these MLA's accepted pay of $1000 a month for 'sitting' on this committee. That's a problem and it deserves attention.

But what also deserves attention is how this became an issue. It did not become an issue because one of these MLA's suddenly had an insight and recognized this should not be happening. It became an issue because a non-profit citizen's advocacy group brought it to public attention. Only then did we have MLA action or rather reaction: announcements of plans to pay back the money received - for doing nothing. And it appeared we were to experience these publicity events as a demonstration of individual integrity and merit. That is a problem also. It should be difficult to present an action as showing integrity and merit,  when it is to correct something that never should have occurred in the first place.

If we feel the need to allow for honest mistake, we might accept that some MLA's expected the committee would meet and thereby justify their pay. This would be very charitable considering the committee's absolute lack of any real activity for several years. The range of time over which this pay was accepted by current MLA's ranges from a few months, to several months and up to 41 months - that sure is a long time to expect something to happen.

The failure of any MLA to raise this practice as an issue sure also is a concern. This is not about just a few MLAs - at last count there were twenty-one who were paid for committee work that did not happen. I assume these are reasonably intelligent people who are fully aware if what they are and are not doing - they did not question this or raise a concern. This suggests this was an established and accepted practice - the routine way of doing business. It also raises the possibility that other such circumstances were occurring that have not come to public attention and therefore scrutiny.

Finally, I cannot but wonder what the response and subsequent action would have been if this had occurred in any other segment of society, outside of government.
And that is what I have to say - for now.