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"We can't allow things that are inaccurate to stand." — The Word of Our Dan, February 19, 2008.

Sunday, September 27, 2009

It's not so easy being Green

In his spirited "clarification" of the Canada Day Surprise that MHAs received early this year, Tom Marshall said:
The House of Assembly Accountability, Integrity and Administration Act, commonly referred to as “The Green Act”, was passed by the House as presented in the Green report in June 2007. This legislation implemented the compensation system proposed by Chief Justice Derek Green in his review of the workings of the House of Assembly.

[...]

To review MHA compensation, Chief Justice Green recommended that once during each General Assembly, the House of Assembly should blah blah blah

[...]

Chief Justice Green’s Report is available on the Provincial Government website at www.gov.nl.ca/publicat/greenreport/.

[...]

In his report, Chief Justice Green recommended that the non-taxable allowance component be eliminated and the salary of MHAs should as of July 1, 2007, be blah blah blah

[...]

Acting on Chief Justice Green’s recommendations, government passed the House of Assembly Accountability, Integrity and Administration Act.
Here's the funny thing: Chief Justice Green, in a section of his report which Marshall, among others, seem to have forgotten about, also recommended:
As in the case of any citizen, Members should be able to make a donation privately from personal funds to whomever they consider needs it. One has to be careful, however, to ensure that more wealthy Members should not be able to obtain an advantage in promoting their own political position by making substantial personal donations, thereby placing financial pressure on less well off Members to do the same. In my view, the effects of this potential inequity can be reduced by requiring that when a Member makes a personal donation he or she should do so without reference to the fact that he or she is a Member of the House; in other words, it is to be made in a personal capacity only. It is true that many people might nevertheless recognize the name and make the connection with the Member’s public position. There is little that can be done about that if the connection is made from general knowledge in the community. However, the Member should not actively promote dissemination of information about the connection when making the donation.
Can anyone think of any of the "more wealthy Members" who make "substantial personal donations", oh, let's say, a significant portion of their salary as MHA, and are not shy about advertising the fact?

1 Comments:

At 2:13 PM, September 27, 2009 , Blogger Edward Hollett said...

Would "all" be a significant portion?

 

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