Along with their new titles, the BC Liberals’ newly-minted cabinet ministers are in line for a bonus, in a manner of speaking.
Lieutenant Governor Judith Guichon swore in Christy Clark’s 22-member cabinet Monday, all of whom stand to take home a little extra pay before a possible defeat at the hands of the NDP-Green alliance in the coming weeks.
University of the Fraser Valley political scientist Hamish Telford says the extra cash isn’t chump change.
“A cabinet minister gets a 50 per cent top-up on their base MLA salary, so cabinet ministers get about $150,000 a year.”
He says that works out to about an extra $1,000 per week for sitting at the cabinet table.
But while it’s something of a bonus for Clark’s caretaker cabinet, Telford said it isn’t costing the public anything extra.
If Clark and her 21 Liberal cabinet ministers didn’t fill the positions, Telford said the province would likely have a similarly-sized NDP cabinet in place.
“Some people may argue that the NDP will inevitably form the government, so they should have been appointed from the start and started working on important files,” he said. “But there is a process to go through here and the Liberals had every right to form a government.”
Clark’s cabinet is made up of 13 men and nine women, including five new faces and several ministers who shuffled portfolios to take over for MLAs who were defeated or retired.
In addition to fleshing out her cabinet, Clark also appointed 13 parliamentary secretaries who each take home an additional $15,882 per year.
The Legislature will be recalled next Thursday for the Throne Speech, with the NDP-Green alliance expected to force a confidence vote the following week.