Western Standard - Franco Terrazzano of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation on ＂eyepopping＂ AHS management compensation

00:00:00.000 okay so i'm sitting today with franco terrizano again they've been putting out a lot of great

00:00:07.840 stuff lately well and unfortunately our government's been giving them a lot of stuff to work on

00:00:11.920 so you guys came out with a press release today uh detailing some of the management numbers from

00:00:18.000 alberta health services uh perhaps you just start off and expand on that franco well for sure well

00:00:23.520 first corey thanks so much for having me on and and we did put out a release today where we were

00:00:27.680 diving into alberta government sunshine list and that's the list that discloses compensation for

00:00:33.600 government employees that are making over 130 000 per year so the big six-figure paychecks and what

00:00:39.920 we saw is we found more than 900 alberta health service management bureaucrats on that list so

00:00:46.160 it turns out that the health minister tyler shandro is absolutely right to be looking at the top of

00:00:50.880 the bureaucrat pyramid to be finding savings um and really like we're long we're long past the days

00:00:57.600 where alberta taxpayers should be asked to be paying a big bureaucrat premium because if you

00:01:02.400 look for the last five years we've seen so many workers outside of government right struggle with

00:01:07.360 pay cuts or job losses and we haven't seen government employees share in the downturn but

00:01:14.000 right now it's time to stop asking taxpayers to be doing all the heavy lifting and it's time to start

00:01:19.120 asking our government employees to also share in the burden and take a cut

00:01:22.720 yeah well i mean it would seem if we're going to trim and we want to keep people working then

00:01:28.960 somebody has to give somewhere we have to reduce the compensation a little bit or we're gonna have

00:01:33.120 to reduce the number of jobs so that's kind of the choice they're at so i'm glad you guys pointed out

00:01:37.360 that you know these people aren't going to hit financial hard times if they take a little off the

00:01:42.640 top there with some of their compensation so into some of the numbers you as you as you really said

00:01:47.200 there were some eye-popping compensation numbers in there especially when compared to other jurisdictions

00:01:52.880 yeah there really was some eye-popping numbers i mean first is that we found more than 900 management

00:01:57.760 bureaucrats um on the sunshine list right so so even there that's eye-popping but then when you

00:02:02.880 look at the numbers you're seeing that these management bureaucrats are making some big time

00:02:07.120 salaries the average of those 900 was more than 193 000 every single year right that's their compensation

00:02:14.800 and that's the average but when you look at the top of the top um for example the the uh the president

00:02:20.000 ceo of alberta health services she pulled in um more than six hundred thousand dollars and actually

00:02:25.600 was closer to seven hundred thousand dollars in annual compensation last year and that's about uh

00:02:30.880 two hundred thousand dollars more than her counterpart in saskatchewan when you look at the vice presidents

00:02:36.640 in alberta they're making way more than their counterparts in saskatchewan as well so right now taxpayers

00:02:42.240 are being asked to pay for what we're calling the alberta bureaucrat premium um but we can't afford

00:02:47.680 it right we have the largest deficit in the province's history we are face to face with a

00:02:52.400 hundred billion dollar debt tab and you can't keep asking taxpayers to give more of their hard-earned

00:02:57.120 money we can't afford it so that really all points into one direction and and that one direction is

00:03:02.160 that it's time for government employees especially these top managers to take pay cuts

00:03:06.400 yeah well and i understand that these managers are doing something that sometimes how much they're

00:03:12.640 doing is this might be in question i i remember somebody pointing out before if you if you go to

00:03:16.640 foothills hospital calgary for example any weekday that staff parking lot is just packed from floor

00:03:21.440 to ceiling you go on a weekend in the evening and that parking lot's empty well people didn't stop

00:03:26.160 being sick during the weekend they still need care uh they still have some degree of staff on yet

00:03:30.800 three quarters of them have vanished but that kind of implies how much management is packed in

00:03:34.640 there during the nine to five uh perhaps there's room to do that with a few less people as well

00:03:39.200 but but the compensation numbers are certainly something to work on so the ucp uh as you said

00:03:44.560 the health minister i guess in mind you're finally starting to talk about the hard realities that we

00:03:48.560 we need to get spending under control and it looks like they've done a little bit of leading by example

00:03:54.560 here with a recent move uh with their own staffing uh what have you guys got to say about that uh

00:04:00.160 initiative yeah well we just heard that the uh the united conservatives their

00:04:04.240 political staffers so um that they're going to be taking a seven percent pay cut and that's

00:04:09.120 a good step it really is right kudos where kudos is due because we've already seen the premier take

00:04:14.320 a ten percent cut we've seen mlas take a five percent cut and now their political staffers are taking

00:04:19.120 a seven percent cut and so it is a good step now it's there's still more work to be done but um they

00:04:24.320 do deserve credit there for tightening their belt and when i say there's there's more work to be done i'm

00:04:30.160 of course talking about broad pay cuts across government you know as i've already mentioned

00:04:34.320 like for the last five years have been devastating for so many families where workers are working

00:04:38.320 outside of government right for example our energy industry has been taking a beating but it's not

00:04:42.480 just the energy industry it's it's the very many industries that of course rely on a healthy energy

00:04:48.160 industry like restaurants and things like that um so everyone outside of government really has been

00:04:52.960 tightening their belts we need to see government employees um sharing the burden as well and on that we

00:04:57.840 haven't seen a broad pay cut for the vast majority of government employees all the way back into since

00:05:03.920 1994 so it's been a very long time and um the reason why the seven percent pay cut to political staffers

00:05:11.280 is so important is that it really helps give premier jason kenney the moral authority to do what needs to

00:05:16.800 be done to put our finances uh back on track yeah well exactly that was one of the first things ralph

00:05:23.840 klein did before your time uh out there but i remember it quite well was they cut their own

00:05:29.200 compensation their gold-plated pension and a number of things before they started cutting on the civil

00:05:33.920 service you have to because you just look terrible if you're sitting there taking a full uh compensation

00:05:39.280 from before yet you're telling others to tighten their belts uh a lot of people are pretty nervous with

00:05:44.080 that though they see this as a precursor uh to some some big uh rollbacks uh what do you have to say

00:05:50.880 with the the labor element who has already uh it's funny they aren't applauding the staffers taking a

00:05:54.720 pay cut they're reacting uh quite uh adversely to this because i think perhaps they see what may be

00:05:58.960 coming well i would say we we need to see it right we need to see pay cuts and back in the early 90s

00:06:05.040 uh premier klein he he went to the union bosses and said look you can take pay cuts or you can take job

00:06:10.320 losses um and you know at the time they they agreed to across the board pay cuts and you know that's

00:06:16.240 almost the exact same type of um thing that kenny's gonna have to bring forward are you willing to

00:06:21.040 share in the tough times and take salary cuts first or does kenny really have to lay down the hammer and

00:06:26.640 lay people off and look not only do we need to reduce our labor costs because our labor costs are

00:06:32.800 making up more than half of the day-to-day spending but we also should be reducing our labor costs right

00:06:37.760 because as labor costs increase that means more taxes on the already struggling taxpayers and it's just

00:06:43.520 not fair to keep asking the struggling workers outside of government to keep paying the tab for

00:06:49.200 our bloated bureaucracy so not only do we need to see pay cuts and uh potentially job losses in the

00:06:54.880 government sector but we we also should be seeing that as well well and there's room to make

00:07:01.280 efficiencies without necessarily uh cutting i guess or or even though it still leads to a radical change

00:07:06.880 a recent thing was the ucb talking about contracting out a great deal of health services such as laundry

00:07:12.480 food preparation and a number of other things which actually i thought we'd done that battle

00:07:16.400 before it seems it all crept back into an in-house system again but they're claiming it could lead

00:07:21.120 to as much as 600 million in savings a year and i mean those jobs wouldn't necessarily all be gone

00:07:25.760 they're just moved on into the private sector rather than the public well you make a great point

00:07:31.280 in that we can we can reduce government spending without necessarily reducing uh programs or services

00:07:37.120 right um if you look at the overall picture alberta spends 10 billion dollars more per person um than

00:07:43.840 our other large provinces like bc ontario and quebec so what does that show you well that shows you right

00:07:48.720 off the bat that alberta is operating a very inefficient provincial government um now on to this move

00:07:54.640 that we're hearing uh from from uh the health minister chandrell about outsourcing about uh going after

00:08:02.160 management and also just about attrition i mean these are the least harmful ways to find savings and

00:08:08.880 we really do have to find savings and be more efficient especially in health care because what

00:08:13.440 how we're spending in health care right now is um is just not sustainable so for example we would

00:08:18.480 say 3.6 billion dollars every single year in health care spending alone if we spent like those

00:08:23.600 other other large provinces and actually alberta spends the most per person in canada outside of

00:08:29.520 newfoundland and labrador on health care spending so i mean really any any way you slice it uh the

00:08:34.400 alberta government is very inefficient and and of course we do have to be getting uh more bang from

00:08:39.760 our taxpayers box yeah well and health care is the the biggest spending item of them all even though it's

00:08:46.080 well because people are the most fearful when it comes to those cuts because they fear losing services

00:08:50.160 but as has been pointed out we can maintain those services uh if we carefully uh rearrange how we're

00:08:55.920 going to be doing it so i imagine you you guys will continue to hold their feet to the fire and be

00:09:00.640 watching how these go uh your release and pointing out where they could find some fat to cut was uh

00:09:06.160 well timed and well placed i i hope they're watching it and i imagine you guys have got more to come for

00:09:10.480 us all oh we've got we've got a lot more to come and of course we're going to keep uh holding these

00:09:15.120 politicians feet to the fire and inquiry thanks so much for having me on today

00:09:18.320 uh look forward to having you on again it's always a good and informative chat thanks brinco

Western Standard - October 16, 2020

Franco Terrazzano of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation on ＂eyepopping＂ AHS management compensation

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