WHAT'S A TRAINED SEAL WORTH?

No, the Prime Minister said. No, there would be no question of
decriminalizing marijuana.

The special all-party committee on Canada's drug laws, struck two weeks ago
to consider such issues, might as well turn in its report now. The MPs on
the committee, who thought they had been given the chance, at long last, to
do what elected representatives are supposed to do -- to thrash through an
issue that divides society, to forge a consensus, to recommend changes --
were reminded of just whose opinion counts for anything in Ottawa.

That was Monday. That same day, the Prime Minister offered his views on
another urgent public matter: whether MPs should receive a raise, as
recommended by a government-appointed commission. On this he was no less
unequivocal. "They're working during the week, they're working on weekends
and I feel that they deserve better pay."

There you have it. Under Jean Chretien's rule, Members of Parliament have
been reduced to obedient footmen, their talents wasted, their opinions
scorned, their responsibilities limited to voting as the party whip demands
- -- even, in one infamous example, if that means voting against their own
party's election platform. If the Prime Minister were to decree that day
were night, government MPs would be expected to stand in the Commons and
vote accordingly.

Yet at the very height of their irrelevance, it is proposed, with Mr.
Chretien's enthusiastic backing, that they should get a 20% raise. Indeed,
to make the irony complete, Mr. Chretien has reportedly ordered Liberal MPs
to fall in line with the commission's recommendations -- that is, to vote
themselves a hefty raise -- backed by the threat that those who vote
against the increase will somehow be excluded from participating in it.
Here's some walking around money, the Prime Minister seems to say, as a
mobster might to his moll. Now keep your trap shut.

It will be more difficult to justify this exchange to the general public.
The commission, headed by a former Liberal Cabinet minister, Ed Lumley, has
proposed folding MPs' base salary of $69,100, together with their $22,800
tax-free, no-receipts-needed expense allowance, into a single pay packet,
such as most Canadians receive. Well, actually, such as very few Canadians
receive: Combined, MPs' compensation is worth $109,000 before tax, which
puts them in the top 2% of all earners. And that's without counting the
additional $15,000 tax-free living allowance MPs receive, or other
benefits, untaxed and largely uncounted, such as the notorious pension scheme.

That's the situation now: The Lumley commission wants to increase their pay
to $131,400. (The Prime Minister's salary, meanwhile, would jump from
$184,600 to nearly $263,000 -- a 42% rise.) Why, exactly, is this in order?
The commission can hardly justify it as merit pay: The present crop of MPs
is by common consent among the least impressive in our storied national
history of mediocre public figures. To the contrary, the raise is pitched
as necessary precisely to improve the quality of those we elect.

At present pay levels, Mr. Lumley argues, it is difficult to attract good
people to public life, especially where this requires them to interrupt
successful careers in other fields. But successful people often make many
times what MPs make, and would even at the inflated levels Mr. Lumley
envisages; by contrast, many of those now holding down seats in Parliament
would be lucky to make half what they're earning now. Would a 20% pay hike
be enough to induce some top performers to leave private life? Or would we
be left with better paid hacks?

The answer to that riddle might be more apparent if we asked another
question: What do we pay MPs for? Is it for their judgment, their wisdom as
legislators? Is it for their prudence, their zeal as watchdogs of the
public purse? Is it even for their inspiring leadership, for the eloquence
of their debates or the moral example they set?

To ask these questions is to answer them -- not because MPs are necessarily
lacking in these qualities, but because they are not given the opportunity
to display them. Or rather, the two are linked: If the current roster of
Parliamentarians is largely undistinguished, it is because those more
talented than they are less willing to live the life of a legislative
eunuch. It isn't the salary that measures the sacrifice involved in being a
Member of Parliament: It's the self-respect. And so, inevitably, the job
tends to be filled by those for whom the sacrifice is least.

The commission, in short, is missing the point. The way to attract better
people into public life is not to give them fatter paycheques: It is to
give them something to do. Absent parliamentary reform, of a kind that
would allow MPs individually to better represent their constituents, and
collectively to hold the government more closely to account, a pay raise is
at best irrelevant. Those now in the job don't deserve it. Those who might
replace them won't take it.