The 17 pension-qualified members of parliament who stood down or were ousted during last week’s federal election will receive $1.4 million per year in payments, according to a new report by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
The think tank, which tracks government expenditure in Canada, says that, should the MPs each live to 90 years old, they will collect a total of $42 million from their pension cheques. It also found that four MPs will receive six-figure pensions.
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The largest pension cheques will be delivered to Liberal Geoff Regan, who will collect $147,000 per year after 24 years in the House of Commons. This is equivalent to about 79.4 per cent of his final salary as a backbench MP. The most modest cheques will be cut for Adam Vaughan, who will receive just $36,000 a year.
Vaughan, first elected in a by-election in late 2014, narrowly met the six-year minimum service requirement to qualify for the pension. If the election had been held about four weeks later, another 22 former parliamentarians, those who first took their seats after the 2015 election, would have also qualified. In lieu of a pension, these MPs received a total of $3.3 million in severance payments.
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In a press release, Franco Terrazzano, federal director of the CTF, called for cuts to the pay and pensions of parliamentarians. “There’s one trillion reasons why politician pay and benefits need to be more affordable. Taxpayers need to see leadership at the top and that means reforming pensions and reversing the pandemic pay raises that MPs pocketed.”