Impolitical writes about the poor optics of giving political aides in ministerial offices nice bonuses, pay increases to match public servants (whose wages they constantly deride), and generous severance pay if they find themselves out of work.
This at a time when harper is constantly going on about cutting the fat in the federal government and TBD holds meetings with Catherine Swift of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business on how to cut public servants’ pay and benefits.
Of at least equal concern is something else the article brings up:
But ministers will have a little more money to play with since the government has decreed that their offices should no longer have to foot the bill for international travel by ministers, their staff and parliamentary secretaries. Those costs will now be absorbed by government departments instead.
Harper has cut departmental budgets, plans to make more cuts to them, but is shoving that horrendous cost onto them.
Now the Ministers can make it look like they are spending little on travel and lay the blame onto departments, claiming this was all something the department required. We know Ministers like to hide such costs.
It is naive to believe that Ministers will not abuse this new policy. Many trips made by MPs are used for partisan reasons with only the weakest of justification linking it to their role as Minister.
So once again, as expenses are transferred to federal departments, how does harper propose to make cuts to them?
