Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Many jurisdictions in Canada publish the salaries, or at least the salary ranges of individual civil servants. This has obvious benefits for accountability and transparency.
In New Brunswick, salary ranges for all employees are listed by department in the government’s annual public accounts. Nova Scotia has just begun requiring government agencies to publicly disclose the compensation, direct and indirect, of anyone who receives more than $100,000 in that fiscal year. Ontario publishes the salaries for public employees earning more than $100,000 a year by name on a readily accessible website. Manitoba requires the disclosure of all public sector salaries over $50,000 through the public body’s audited financial statements. Alberta discloses senior official salaries in an annual report issued under the Alberta Treasury Board directive. Of course, British Columbia discloses the remuneration of public servants who make over $70,000 a year.
But in the NWT, as I understand it, if a member of the public wants to know the salary range of a particular civil servant or a position, they have to file an access to information request. If the information of this is so limited and challenging, how is this being a fair essence of disclosure to our public citizens?
The government will argue this and say it’s a breach, in their view, under privacy. But I’ve given so many examples to explain why and how others do this, why can’t we? It’s time that this government is proactive in the disclosure of our salaries when we want to talk about good accountability.
The other day I raised the issue about senior management bonuses. It’s time to start talking about these things in public and sharing the information that rightly belongs in public. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Hawkins. The Member for Deh Cho, Mr. Nadli.
