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Saturday, January 3, 2009

Running government like a business

Posted by Tim Bousquet on Sat, Jan 3, 2009 at 8:40 AM

I don't see what people are so upset about:

Premier Rodney MacDonald gave substantial raises to senior staffers in his office last year, according to documents obtained by The Chronicle Herald.Bob Chisholm, who has been Mr. MacDonald’s chief of staff since he took over from Heather Foley-Melvin in 2006, got a 9.7 per cent raise when he signed a contract on Oct. 29. It brought his salary to $144,476.78, up from $131,613.82, and includes a 12-month severance. The contract is retroactive to June 25 and runs to next June 25.Stephen Greene, the premier’s deputy chief of staff, got a bump of 14.9 per cent, going to $137,920 from $120,000.
I mean, sure, Rodney just told rank and file public employees they'd have to take a hit for the team:
Tough economic times will hit public sector bargaining tables this year, warns Premier Rodney MacDonald.Mr. MacDonald has said repeatedly that the coming year poses challenges for the province’s finances, and that will have an impact on thousands of unionized workers.“I think there’s a recognition on everyone’s part that these are unusual times, and if we want to balance the books of the province, if we want to pay for our services — both our social services and our infrastructure — there has to be some give and take,” Mr. MacDonald told reporters recently.
But we've long been told that government should be run like a business, right? So it makes perfect sense that Rodney's staffers get huge raises while other government workers take a financial hit.If you don't agree, you just don't understand how it's done:
TORONTO – Canada may be in for a rocky economic ride, but the nation’s best paid 100 CEOs are still basking in the glow of the banner year of 2007: they got a record 22% average pay hike in 2007.Canada’s best paid 100 CEOs tallied one billion in average total earnings – a historical first, according to a report on CEO pay by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).“At that rate of pay, Canada’s richest CEOs pocket the average Canadian wage of $40,237 by 9:04 a.m. January 2nd – before most Canadians have booted up their computer for another year of work,” says CCPA Research Associate Hugh Mackenzie.

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so, can we agree that the unions should split $25,000 in pay raises, and refrain from charging the hardworking taxpayers for overtime?Or that we should move corporate HQ to the US, so that there are no more canadian CEOs?

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Posted by friggin_people on 01/05/2009 at 4:00 AM
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