Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Saturday, March 31, 2012

Harper should lead by example on pension austerity, Rae says

If the prime minister is going to raise the age for Old Age Security from 65 to 67, then he should lead by example and dump a $100,000 prime ministerial pension top-up, Liberal interim leader Bob Rae gibed on Friday afternoon.

As provided for in paragraph 48 of the Members of Parliament Retiring Allowances Act, when the prime minister turns 65 he’ll begin to receive an annual “special allowance” equal to two thirds of his annual salary — that’s in addition to his pension.

The Liberals plan to table a sub-amendment to yesterday’s budget to get rid of it, Rae said.

“Not many Canadians are aware of it, quite apart from MPs’ pensions there’s a separate allowance for the prime minister, for a retiring prime minister that was brought in in 1992 for some particular reason,” Rae told a scrum of reporters.

“I don’t know why that would be.”

Original Article
Source: ipolitics
Author: ipolitics

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