Western Standard - April 01, 2024


Prime minister’s salary is now $406,200


Episode Stats

Length

2 minutes

Words per Minute

157.70715

Word Count

354

Sentence Count

20


Summary

The federal government is trying to push the date of the next election back by a week, which means 80 additional MPs will be eligible for a $2 million-a-lifetime pension. Some MPs, for some MPs serving six years, could get a lifetime pension of more than $2M.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 what's going on. So any MP elected in the 2019 federal election, well, they're not eligible for
00:00:06.120 their pension until October 21, 2025. Now the scheduled election is for October 20, 2025. So
00:00:14.880 what do the feds do? Well, they're now going to try to bump the election back to October the 27th
00:00:20.180 of 2025. And that would mean that 80 additional MPs would be eligible for that pension.
00:00:25.800 And the total cost could be up to $120 million. But Corey, look, I'm not naive. I guess it's
00:00:32.880 probably unlikely that all 80 of those MPs were to lose their seat. But if even half of those MPs
00:00:40.440 lose their seat, then moving the week or moving the election one week back would cost taxpayers tens
00:00:46.780 of millions of dollars. And it just shows how lucrative that gross federal pension plan is.
00:00:54.280 I mean, you only have to actually serve six years before you gain that entitlement to a pension.
00:01:01.640 I mean, even if you only put six years in, you're going to blow away the return on a whole lifetime
00:01:05.760 of paying into the CPP with what you're going to get back out of this thing. You can see why it's
00:01:10.740 so important to them, I guess, to make sure that their outgoing members can get their noses into the
00:01:15.340 trough before they leave. You want to hear how lucrative it is, Corey? So some MPs, for some MPs,
00:01:22.740 just working six years could get a lifetime pension of more than $2 million. Okay? Just six years of
00:01:32.240 being an MP and a lifetime pension of more than $2 million for some of these MPs. Now, the starting
00:01:38.780 annual pension, just the starting annual, will be anywhere from about $32,000 for the backbencher
00:01:45.480 year, all the way up to $49,000. And that would be for like Minister Anita Anand, Minister Steve
00:01:52.360 Anguibo, his starting annual pension will be around $48,000. But yeah, just to tie a bow on it. I mean,
00:01:59.720 come on, some MPs serving six years and could get a lifetime pension of $2 million plus? It's crazy.
00:02:07.240 Thank you.