As the uproar continued to bubble over how Alberta's MLAs are paid, Premier Alison Redford moved to fight the flames by announcing her MLAs would no longer take pay for serving on committees.
The Canadian Taxpayers' Federation drew attention to the issue last week when they handed out one of their annual awards for taxpayer waste for a legislature committee that hadn't met since 2008.
MLAs are paid a base salary, which is then topped up based on the legislature committees that they sit on and other work they perform. One-third of an MLA's salary is also paid tax-free.
Redford announced Monday her government MLAs would not accept the committee pay and would also decline pay for sitting on government policy committees, separate groups that consist only of government MLAs.
Justice John Major is currently leading an independent review of how MLAs are paid, which includes a tax-free portion and severance allowances when an MLA retires or isn't re-elected.
Redford said she was interested to hear the outcome of Major's review, but she wants a pay system that is easy for Albertans to understand.
"While Justice Major's review is currently underway, it does not change my opinion that MLAs should have one, easy-to-understand pay package.
St. Albert MLA Ken Allred, who never sat on the committee that didn't meet, said the premier's move make sense because it shows she is acting on an issue, which Albertans are obviously interested in.
"She has done what she can and she certainly is concerned about."
Allred did say he believes that more committee assignments should come with more pay, because otherwise MLAs would be paid disproportionately for the work they do.
"I think it is reasonable for people to serve on a lot of committees to get more pay."
He said MLAs who spend a lot of time working on legislature work wouldn't be rewarded for that effort if it was equalized.
"It is going to hit people that are on a lot of committees fairly hard."
Allred said the public at large always looks at government pay as exorbitant, but in some cases MLAs leave better paying private sector work to come to the legislature.
He agrees with the need for changes to the severance system.
Opposition unimpressed
Liberal leader Raj Sherman went a step further on the issue returning more than $40,000 for his service on the infamous committee. Another Liberal MLA, Dr. David Swann, had turned over his portion to charity and Sherman said he had to follow suit.
"I served on the committee for 41 months; we took all 41 months I served and compounded the interest and wrote a cheque for $43,000."
Sherman decried Redford's move and said it was little more than a cheap trick. He said the government has always had the power to fix this problem and has chosen not to.
"They are the very people who established the committee structure in the first place," he said. "This same premier and most of them who are in cabinet are the ones who developed this."
The Liberal's plan would consist of one taxable pay package for all MLA work and a reduced severance package. They would also reduce the number of MLAs to 68 from the planned 87.
Wildrose MLAs Heather Forsyth and Guy Boutiller also returned the funds this week.
NDP MLA Rachel Notley called the premier's move obvious politics, but said they will accept the change to committee pay.
"Pay is ultimately governed by the majority in the legislature and we will go along with that."
Notley sat on the dormant committee along with several other committees and said because of that her pay would not have been affected, so she doesn't plan to return the funds.
"Whether I had sat on that committee or not would not have made any impact."
She said any MLA pay has to be easy to understand and set independently if Albertans are to have any faith in the system.
Major's review is independent of government, but he is set to report back to speaker Ken Kowalski in early May.
