Entitlism and Quebec's Ruling Elite

Jean-François Lisée, Mr. No-Show

As you probably are aware Jean-François Lisée, a minister in the PQ government recently came under criticism for 'double-dipping,' that is accepting two government paid salaries at the same time.

Lisée is currently paid about $165,000 as a minister in the Quebec government, but was collecting until now, another $8,667 dollars a month from the University of Montreal. 

Within a day or two of the story breaking in la Presse, Lisée renounced the second salary, claiming that although he was entitled to it, he would donate the money to charity. Link

Lisée was hired as directer by the University of Montreal's  Centre d’études et de recherches internationales de l’Université de Montréal (CÉRIUM) in 2004 and because he demanded a salary that the university could not meet (because of university remuneration guidelines,) the school and Lisée concocted what can only be characterized as an unethical and underhanded, yet perfectly legal scheme, to pay him more money than the rules dictated.

The university agreed to credit Lisée a 'thirteenth' month of salary for each year worked, to be paid at the end of his employment as some sort of exit payment, something that did not contravene the letter of the guidelines, but certainly the spirit.
And so when Lisée left the university after eight years, the school as per the agreement, continued to pay his full salary for another eight months.
Those eight months were to carry him until February, 2013.
When all this hit the fan, Lisée decided to donate the future payments to charity, but not what he was already paid, so all we are talking about is the two months of these $8,667 payments, not that big a deal when you consider the taxes owing.

Instead of complaining over the double-dipping, which is entirely legal, nobody has challenged the university or Lisée on the ethics of the whole dirty deal.
It isn't much different from Tony Soprano 'convincing' a construction company to put a couple of his 'boys' on the payroll, without of course, the pesky obligation to show up to work.
Anyway you slice it, it is called a no-show job, a crude shakedown.

And let us remember, Mr. Lisée's $104,000 salary at the university was basically for part-time work. He continued to write for L’actualité magazine and for Le Journal de Montreal, as well as finding the time to write four or five books, as well as appearing on television regularly as a political commentator, as well as hosting his own television show, Planète Terre.TV
Link{Fr}
It seems that Lisée was collecting a salary from every direction, in the true spirit of MUHC consummate gonif Arthur Porter.

Oh and by the way, for his eight years of 'work' at the university, Lisée has earned himself an indexed $28,000 pension for life, which he is eligible to collect later his year!

It is these type of stories of naked greed and entitlement of those at the top of our society, that has those at the bottom asking why they should finance the orgy of entitlement.

Can one really fault students for refusing to accept increased tuition fees when the universities, both English and French engage in deceitful over-spending wherein the top echelon are paid outrageous salaries complete with immoral and unjustifiable pensions.
Before we anglos get on our high horse, Concordia university wins the prize for the most irresponsible board of directors offering the most outrageous severance packages to those in high places.
Think I'm exaggerating? Read this;

As university president, Judith Woodsworth has made an unlikely return to Concordia as a professor, despite having been compensated over $169,573 in “administrative leave pay” to help her get back on her feet.
On Dec. 22, 2010 Woodsworth left the university at the urging of the Board of Governors halfway through her term in office, receiving a $747,045 severance package that stands out as one of the hallmarks of a governance crisis that continues to plague the university. $900K Later, Judy’s Back in the Classroom

But exorbitant exit payments and double-dipping are part of Quebec society and since those who benefit from the practice are those that create the rules, it's easy to understand how we got to the point where a public employee can collect two generous and  indexed pensions, while the poor saps in private industry receive crumbs when they retire.

Let us understand the concept of double-dipping.
It is the act of either having two government or quasi-government jobs at the same time, or more likely, collecting a publicly funded pension (and I don't mean old-age security) at the same time as receiving a paycheck from the government or quasi-government agency.
It also means accepting two distinct publicly-funded pensions at the same time.

Let me give you some examples;

Ex-Premier Jean-Charest will collect a $100,000 plus pension from the Parliament of Canada when he turns 55 later this year.
When he turns sixty, he will be eligible to collect a Quebec government pension for his service in the National Assembly, which also works out to over $100,000 a year.
All this is indexed and so for the rest of his life, Canadian and Quebec taxpayers will be paying out two pensions, the equivalent of over $200,000 towards his retirement. Not bad.....
In fact the two pensions add up annually  to more money than Charest ever earned, even in his best year!
That's double-dipping.

A politician who serves for thirty years in Parliament in Ottawa will collect one pension, while a politician who serves fifteen years in a provincial Parliament, in addition to fifteen years in federal Parliament will collects two pensions and receive about 50% more in combined revenues at age sixty-five.

Consider Mr. Charest, (who I am only using as an example) who after his political career can choose to return to public life, perhaps as a government consultant or a member of the diplomatic corps, thus earning a third source of revenue from the government.
Triple-dipping!.....Call it a Dairy Queen special!

At any rate, let's go on.

There are to my knowledge at least three members of Quebec's National Assembly who are already collecting a publicly paid pension, while being paid to serve as an elected  member.
Guy Ouellette, Robert Poeti and Jacques Duchesneau are all retired law-enforcement officers who are each collecting a very generous, indexed police pension.
In Duchesneau's case, the pension is north of $100,000, according to my calculations.

The third type of double-dipping is what Mr. Lisee was doing, collecting two public salaries, in his case,  one from the university and one from the National Assembly.

But perhaps the most galling type of remunerations are the famous transition payments where some  receive a payment upon termination of employment, regardless whether the recipient was fired or left of his or her own accord.

Now I can accept as reasonable an exit payment paid to a defeated politician whose sole source of revenue is the paycheck received as an elected official. It is rough to know that with each election one can lose his or her job rather abruptly. 
Transitioning out of public life and being forced to find employment can be stressful and a safety net payment providing a replacement income for up to a year can be justified.

But these payments are also offered to public officials who quit their jobs of their own volition, something that is insulting to taxpayers. Some have jobs lined up the next day!

Even disgraced politicians who resign in the face of a public backlash are eligible for up to one year's salary.
And so the indicted ex-mayor of Mascouche, the soon to be indicted ex-mayor of Laval and the never to be indicted (but disgraced) ex-mayor of Montreal will all receive payments of tens of thousands of dollars.

The very worst exit payments that I can think of, were paid to four characters that left their jobs in a cloud of disgrace, having cost taxpayers dearly for their incompetence, mistakes or alleged criminality.

After the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec's financial meltdown in 2009, whereby the public pension plan lost $40 billion dollars, or about 25% of it's value, Henri-Paul Rousseau, its boss, quit to take another position with Power Corporation a few months later.
Despite the utter financial disaster that he oversaw and ignoring the fact that he quit, Rousseau received an exit payment $380,000

Readers might recall the Îlot Voyageur fiasco where costs for the new UQAM building in Montreal exploded from the projected cost of $392 millions to $728 million.

The rector of the university, Roch Denis, was investigated for fraud, but in the end was not charged and the whole affair was charged to incompetence.
He left in disgrace, taking with him an exit payment of $173,000.
The other two UQAM directors who were blamed for the financial disaster by the auditor-general of Quebec also received generous exit payments upon their forced departures. Link{fr}
And remember, these three were responsible for the over $300 million in cost overruns!

And then there is the famous Claude Blanchet, husband of Premier Pauline Marois who as boss of a Société générale de financement (SGF) between 2001 and 2003 ran up losses of  $775 million, this while offering generous bonuses to himself and other highly ranked employees!

When he was shoved out of the job early, he 'negotiated' a sweetheart deal for himself, including a year's salary of $257K and a lifetime pension of $80,000!  Link{fr}

It's a bit ironic that Pauline Marois and the PQ raised a ruckus over the Liberal Party's practice of topping off Jean Charest's salary to the tune of $80K a year, considering that Quebec taxpayers will be paying the indexed pension of $80,000 a year to Pauline's jewel of a husband, a man who headed a dysfunctional agency that blew three quarters of a billion dollars of taxpayers money on his watch, FOR THE REST O HIS LIFE!

As for conclusions, I'll leave that up to readers, in the comment section.