Month: September 2012

Global News today reports that the freeze on MP pay raises will be lifted,

The freeze on MP salaries, which hasn’t given them a pay raise since 2010, will be removed, with future increases tied to the average increase in public sector wages, Global News has learned.
 
The move will alleviate some of the financial pain MPs will feel as the government is about to unveil changes to their pension plan scheme.

And, as it often goes in this town, life often imitates art as another episode of Yes (Prime) Minister plays out. From the Wikipedia plot summary of S01E05 “A Real Partnership”,

[PM] Jim Hacker goes back to his apartment above 10 Downing Street after a Cabinet meeting that has not gone well. He explains to Annie, his wife, that there is a financial crisis looming and every department must cut expenditure. Furthermore, he is about to receive a deputation of MPs to whom he has promised a pay rise—and he has no sympathy for them.
 
…
 
After [a later] meeting, Sir Humphrey presents the PM with his new pay proposal: an apparent rise of around 6% (provided it is not examined too closely). He also recommends that MPs should be graded in line with civil servants, so that every time the latter get an increase, the former would as well. He suggests that Hacker be equivalent to a Permanent Secretary, causing the PM to remark that they are indeed a partnership.

h/t: @MikeBrownECE

Looks like the Quebec student protesters want to reach out and disrupt a class near you. From rabble.ca, we learn of a cross-country speaking tour featuring CLASSE activists. Yes, here comes the whine and the fanciful marxist bleatings.

rabble.ca is very pleased to announce a cross-Canada speaking tour which will start at the end of this month and continue into the first week of October. We’re also incredibly thankful to the Communications, Energy and Paperworkers union (CEP), Ryerson’s Social Justice Week and LeadNow for their support.
 
It will feature Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, the former spokesperson for CLASSE. The most public and visible representative of a leaderless movement, Nadeau-Dubois has been at the eye of the hurricane since the beginning of the strike. He will be joined by Cloé Zawadzki-Turcotte, a former member of CLASSE’s Executive and a key organizer behind the strike who is in fact currently on a tour in the Maritimes, and yours truly.
 
We’ll be talking about what happened in Quebec, but also how the hard-earned lessons of the longest student strike in Canadian history can be applied to organizing across the country. We hope to be able to build bridges of solidarity with movements in other parts of Canada, ties that are critical to mounting a truly national movement against Stephen Harper and austerity.
 
The dates which have been confirmed are as follows — with likely at least a couple more locations to confirm in the next few days — but it will depend on local partners and our ability to raise funds.
September 29th – London, ON
 
September 30th – Toronto
 
October 1st – Ryerson (Toronto) – Nadeau-Dubois will be joining the closing panel of Social Justice Week
 
October 2nd – Saskatoon and Regina
 
October 3rd – Winnipeg
 
October 4th – Victoria and Vancouver Island
 
October 5th – Vancouver
 
We hope you’ll join us at one of these locations, to hear war stories and learn about CLASSE’s tactics and strategies, to understand the real story behind the media spin that came out of Quebec this year, and to meet these two incredible young people who I truly believe represent some of the best and brightest their generation has to offer.