Metro Vancouver politicians have quietly voted themselves some hefty perks, but we can’t tell you who said yes to putting those extra tax dollars in their pockets.
Until recently, members of the board that runs Metro Vancouver — made up of mayors and city councillors — were able to claim a portion of their income for their duties tax-free.
Now, the Canada Revenue Agency has said that’s not going to happen anymore.
So rather than just suck it up like you, when your taxes go up, Metro Vancouver’s board said, “We’ll just give ourselves a pay rise to offset the tax increase.”
And then the Metro Vancouver board decided it would be a great idea to bring in a retirement allowance, kind of like a severance package, for people that a) are retiring or b) not re-elected, and it’s retroactive to 2007.
So that’s going to cost you about $500,000, about $60,000 a year, to maintain.
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My producer Pippa Reed called Metro Vancouver on Tuesday and asked for a list of the councillors who voted and how they voted.
We were told that the vote was not recorded. Councillors can opt to have their votes not recorded. If we wanted to figure out how they voted, we should go look at a video on a website that shows the councillors voting.
There are 40 of them. And I wouldn’t know about 80 per cent of them if I ran them over with my car.
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Add to that the fact that probably 30 per cent of them had their backs to the camera. I’m sorry, but that’s not a particularly reliable investigative technique.
So thanks Metro Vancouver, but no thanks.
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They didn’t record the vote on a matter involving your money in which they were putting that money in their pockets. Who does that? How do they not record the bloody vote?
It’s public money, it’s a public organization, it’s funded by the public. How did they not record the votes?
LISTEN: Politicians give themselves a raise and retirement allowance
We know at least four members voted no. They were Councillors Colleen Jordan and Sav Dhaliwal from Burnaby, Maria Ellis who represents Electoral Area A and District of North Vancouver Mayor Richard Walton.
How many voted yes? I would love to tell you, and I would love to be able to name them, but this public organization using public money doesn’t seem to have that information on hand.
The vote occurred on Friday morning. We asked days later, and they still don’t know.
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