Quote:
Originally Posted by Erick Estrada
I don't think the best and brightest avoid politics because of the money. The pensions alone are very lucrative. It's a largely a despised profession that brings with it a high level of media scrutiny and toxic levels of partisanship. I could argue that upping the salaries would bring forth more greedy, power hungry people into politics for the wrong reasons.
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Are they?
People say this all the time.
They say things like "They did one term and get a lifetime pension", but it's not true.
Yes MPs, and MLAs get a pretty good pension, but it's not like it's some massive payout the day they leave office.
1) The have to serve 6 years to get the full pension
2) they can't start taking it until they are 55 (at a reduced rate), or 65 for the full pension.
It's good, but it's not some golden goose that you can serve one term and walk away set for life.
DB pensions aren't all that common anymore, and this is a pretty good one, but it's not outrageous.
Average pension payout as of 2019 (way down in the link below) is a little less than $70k/year.
Not bad, for sure, but not lucrative. And the average age is 74 years, so it's not like there are a bunch of single term 40 year olds collecting anything (cause they wouldn't be eligible anyway)
https://www.osfi-bsif.gc.ca/eng/oca-...MP19.aspx#appA
The whole pension thing is something people always throw around, but I'd be willing to bet almost no one actually looks it up.