Harper Among Former Reform MPs To Collect Big Pensions
Posted February 21, 2010 1:27 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
Almost all the remaining MPs from the old Reform Party – including Stephen Harper – stand to collect over $100,000 a year in pension benefits once they retire.
Back in 1993, a group of 52 Reformers took Ottawa by storm, capturing the public attention with their stand against so-called gold-plated pensions for Members of Parliament.
At the time, they said they would refuse to collect their pensions as a way of leading by example and fighting the deficit.
But since then, according to tracking by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, most of them have quietly opted back in, including the 11 who are still in the House of Commons,
Now, as the public service suspects Ottawa is about to target the pension packages of government workers as a way to tackle the latest deficit, MPs’ own pensions are under scrutiny again.
Numbers crunched by the Taxpayers Federation lobby group show that Prime Minister Harper is in line to collect $150,244 a year if he were to retire at the end of this year, while Indian Affairs Minister Chuck Strahl could collect more than $155,000.
