Niagara Regional Councilllors Vote Themselves A Raise

A News Commentary by Doug Draper

For the first time in half a decade of self-imposed zero salary increases, Niagara, Ontario’s regional councillor took time at a meeting this Wednesday, February 18^th to vote themselves an increase of 2.93 per cent.

Niagara, Ontario’s regoinal government headquarters

The move sees base salaries (not counting any additional monies that come with sitting on some committees and boards) rise from $28,353 to $29,184 annually for the 30 part-time regional councillors, and from $117,330 to $120,768 for the regional chair.

As news of this salary hike circulates in Niagara’s mainstream media, there are already the trolls out there hiding, like the cowards they are behind pseudonyms, using words like “pigs” to slam those who voted for a raise they are calling “outrageous” and “obscene.”

As someone who has covered municipal politics in this Niagara region for more than 30 years now, I have formed a more nuanced take on this.

First and foremost, and as cynical as many seem to be these days about politicians, there have been plenty examples of individuals who have served us well in municipal office. The good ones have poured far more of their lives into it than they have ever gotten back in financial compensation.

Further to that, I don’t know why anyone would want the job and I know many good people who have decided not to run for elected office due to the way politicians are vilified, especially in the social media. For reasons that make no sense here, there are online sites operated by mainstream news organizations in this region that post comments about people serving in elected office here that creep into the area of libelous and defamatory.

So generally speaking, I don’t have that much of a problem paying the very few we have in elected office a salary that in the case of Niagara’s regional government, adds up to less than one percent of the hundreds of millions per year of operating and capital dollars they are there to make sure are well spent on our behalf.

Among the only reservations I have is that this raise is being fired off to the whole regional council for final approval during a time when Niagara, Ontario continues to suffer one of the higher jobless rates in all of Canada, and when younger people here are facing double digit unemployment.

A disproportionate number of people in Niagara have been not only had to live with wage freezes for many years, they have been down waged, if not downsized. Meanwhile, many of our young people have been coerced by our colleges and universities to put in hundreds of hours as unpaid interns – akin to slave labour – to earn diplomas and degrees they have already gone into tens-of-thousands of dollars in debt to obtain.

Add to this the fact that Niagara remains one of the very few regions left in Ontario that has not demonstrated the will to get past a patchwork of local public transit systems to establish a fully functional, accessible and affordable regional transit system for all of its residents, including people on fixed incomes and younger people who can’t afford cars, yet need transportation to live and work here.

There are a number of key and vocal members of the regional council who have expressed interest in dumping the very limited inter-municipal transit services the region launched four years ago, and it would not be surprising if there are neigh votes on this council to scrap even that before the end of this year.

So there are reasons to wonder if it is a good idea for this regional council to vote itself a raise at this challenging time for so many others, including young people and those on fixed incomes or who have found their incomes disappear completely.

One of the comments that popped up on an online news site called upon others to remember those councillors who voted in favour of the raise when it comes time to vote in the next municipal elections.

It is highly unlikely that memory will come into play in municipal elections that are now more than three-and-a-half years away. And even if it did, in last fall’s municipal elections only about one-third of all eligible voters across Niagara showed enough interest to cast a ballot.

I have found over the years that many people who are too lazy to show interest in municipal government, right up to and including not exercising their duty to vote, are among the first to complain about pay raises for elected councillors and anything else they feel negatively effects them.

One cannot help but lose interest in these people. My line to them now is; ‘I’m sorry. If you could not even be bothered to go out and vote, I don’t want to hear it.’

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