Latest news with #BlacklocksReporter
Yahoo
11-07-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
MP pensions have increased 11.4% over past two years, according to new Treasury Board report
New numbers from the federal Treasury Board indicate that annual MP pensions averaged $81,140 last year. That's up 11.4 per cent, compounded over the last two years due to inflation indexing, according to Blacklock's Reporter. The indexation covers retirement allowances, survivor benefits, and disability pensions based on cost-of-living increases. There are 1,193 MPs, retirees and family members enrolled in the benefits plan. Payments last year included benefits to 192 widows and orphans. 'A plan member's benefits are based on the number of years of pensionable service at retirement, where that service was accrued, the age at which they start receiving benefits and whether they retire because of a disability,' says the Treasury Board report. To qualify for a pension, MPs must serve for at least six years. Six MPs fell short of that after losing in April's federal election. They are former Liberals Han Dong (Don Valley North, Ont.) and Irek Kusmierczyk (Windsor—Tecumseh, Ont.), and New Democrats Taylor Bachrach (Skeena—Bulkley Valley, B.C.), Laurel Collins (Victoria), Matthew Green (Hamilton Centre, Ont.) and Lyndsay Mathyssen (London—Fanshawe, Ont.). In 2000, Parliament mandated all MPs to enroll in the pension plan. Then in 2005, Parliament passed An Act To Amend The Parliament Of Canada Act mandating automatic annual pay hikes for MPs based on inflation and a labour department index of wage settlements in the unionized private sector. Cabinet has waived the automatic April 1 raises only once, for three years following the 2008 financial crisis. Here are the 80 MPs set to qualify for a pension with the help of a Liberal rule change Justin Trudeau set to earn more than $8 million in government pensions and severance Our website is the place for the latest breaking news, exclusive scoops, longreads and provocative commentary. Please bookmark and sign up for our daily newsletter, Posted, here.
Yahoo
03-07-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Canada's first PM 'too controversial' for commemoration, federal board rules
Canada's first prime minister has been deemed too 'polarizing and controversial' to warrant any new federally-sponsored commemoration, a federal board recommended. According to reports published Thursday by Blacklock's Reporter, the board recommended that Sir John A. Macdonald — who served as Canada's first and third prime minister — garner no further plaques or commemoration. 'The Board recommended that Sir John A. Macdonald be commemorated by means of information to be made available on the Parks Canada website and that no plaque be erected,' read minutes of a Dec. 12, 2023 meeting of Parks Canada's Historic Sites and Monuments Board, obtained by Blacklock's via an access to information request. The board reviewed and revised Macdonald's designation as a National Historic Person in 2024, which according to a statement on a Parks Canada website on Macdonald's legacy aligns with Call to Action no. 79 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission — calling on the federal government to 'develop a reconciliation framework for Canadian heritage and commemoration.' LILLEY: Sir John A's statue at Queen's Park is free at last WARMINGTON: Sir John A. Macdonald's home reopens with rewritten history Minutes from the meeting suggest members agreed Macdonald is now a 'polarizing and controversial figure in Canadian history' with 'complex' legacies. 'Given that Macdonald continues to be a polarizing figure, the Board noted the challenge of crafting a statement that views him from multiple perspectives and that there will continue to be public dialogue about Macdonald's legacy to present-day Canada,' the meeting's minutes stated. 'The Board then turned to consider whether or not it was appropriate to erect a plaque for Sir John A. Macdonald.' The board concluded that existing statues and commemorations, including his gravesite at Cataraqui Cemetery in Kingston, were sufficient without introducing more. Activism over Macdonald's legacy led to a widespread erasure across Canada, ranging from statues violently toppled to a rash of renamings, including schools and the Ottawa River Parkway — formerly known as the Sir John A. Macdonald Parkway as of 2023 is now known as 'Kichi Zibi Mikan.' A statue of Sir John A. Macdonald at Queen's Park, unveiled in 1894, spent five years enclosed in a wooden box until the coverings were removed earlier this month.
