This morning, over my usual breakfast of brown rice, as is
my habit, I perused various news headlines on my tablet. On the CBC site I
noted that one of the news points reported on was that the House of Commons
had, during question period, raised the issue of how much Canadian taxpayers
paid to have a technician travel with Trudeau during his Christmas holiday. It appears as if we had to pay $1,694 for his
accommodation. The math is beyond me but
$1,604 must be less than .00001 percent of the total Canadian budget. I
understand that the opposition is concerned about whether or not Trudeau will
be unduly influenced by the holiday - but really are there not more important
things to worry about? If the honourable members of the Opposition are running
out of ideas - I think I, along with thousands of other Canadians, probably
have a few suggestions. Resolving the housing crisis in Northern Canada, the
lack of jobs for young people, the cost of post-secondary education, and
creating a Canada wide response to climate change are a few suggestions.
The next item on CBC's list of newsworthy items was the fact
that at least twelve Ontario police officers who have been suspended because
they have been charged with a criminal offense remain on the payroll of their
police force and made over $100,000.00 dollars last year. Ontario is the only
province that has a policy that states
that unless an office serves jail time - they must be kept on the force's
payroll. While those in charge of administrating the police must dislike this
law - I am sure that police unions will fight to keep it.
I appreciate the fact
that we are all innocent until the judge says we are guilty and that it perhaps
is wrong to fire someone before their guilt has been proven. I do question why
taxpayers have to pay someone's salary for a period on months if not years when
they are not doing anything. Is there no work that those officers could be
doing? Surely there is some filing or toilet cleaning that needs to be done. I
am willing to bet that those officers who are found guilty don't ever have to
pay back the money.
This is not a slam against the vast majority of police
officers who are hard working, honest and who have a vested interest in creating
communities that are safe. But I am damned if I can understand why a police
officer who is charged with a crime (and maybe even convicted) gets treated
differently (better) than do other workers. If for example, a part time worker
at a fast food restaurant or at a dollar store is caught stealing - they get
fired. There is no year long process where they get paid to not work while the
courts process the charge.
There are times when
various union contracts/influences have lead the way to improved labour
conditions - this is not one of them.
In terms of the juxtaposition of these two articles one could
wonder if the House of Commons, as the members think about how to reform it,
should have a limit on questions that deal with minuscule amounts of money and
be forced to deal with real issues of social inequity.
