The Hill: Senate side jobs can pay off

Our senators are picking up a little extra cash outside the Senate. It’s all nice and legal. No Mike Duffy stuff.

There’s no law that says their job is being in the Senate all the time.

They only work about 82 to 89 days a year in the Senate in Ottawa. What they do the rest of the time is up to them.

When people ask senators how much they make, the frequent reply is: “Senators are paid  $142,400 a year.” Well, that’s the minimum Senate salary. It doesn’t include tag-on extras called indemnities.

The Speaker of the Senate makes $200,900. The leader of the government in the Senate earns $222,500.
Oh, yes, don’t forget to add on an allowance for a car and a residence to the Speaker’s salary. The leader of the opposition in the Senate isn’t forgotten either. He’s in at $180,500. There are all sorts of Senate committees. So Senate committee chairpersons earn $154,000 and committee vice chairpersons get $148,200.

Senate salaries and indemnities are expected to go up again this year, as they usually do after a new Commons budget is approved. It’s a great way to convince senators to approve the government’s annual budget.  

The Senate has a great schedule for senators who want to make money on the side. Here’s why. The Senate meets one week on, one week off.

In all, the Senate sits about 82 to 89 days a year. The rest is time off. That includes weekends and statutory holidays. Toss in summer holidays from June to September. Don’t forget Christmas holidays and Easter week, plus the occasional extra holidays and the great one-week-on, one-week-off routine. One of our most famous senators is retiring next month after 21 years in the Senate. Céline Hervieux-Payette did it all the way the Senate allows it to be done. She never let her political career interfere with her law work.  Her years as a Montreal lawyer at Fasken Martineau DuMoulin LLP were good ones.

The way the Senate works you can be a senator and still keep a steady job on the side as long as you show up in the Senate when you are supposed to, avoid conflicts of interest, and keep your outside work separate from your political work.

As we have seen, those who don’t can end up in court or lose their jobs.

Hervieux-Payette will be 75 years old in April, and that’s the age of retirement for the Senate. Jean Chrétien put her in the Senate in 1995. By 2007, she was leader of the Liberal opposition in the Senate, an even better-paying job.

But last month she got a nice letter telling her at 75 it’s time to pack her bags and clear out of the office. Time is up — compulsory retirement, they call it. She has two months to pack up.

She’s not sad to leave. She has done her time in the Senate, she says. Plus she’s made good money on the side over the years at her law office, and at the Steinberg’s grocery chain, and at SNC Lavalin. Now she’ll have even more time for her law work.

Claude Carignan has been a lawyer since 1988 with a law degree from l’Université de Sherbrooke. Married to a lawyer, he is author of several books on civil litigation. He has extensive expertise in municipal and labour law.

Carignan, a Conservative appointed by Stephen Harper, was leader of the government in the Senate last year. He was paid $222,500 a year plus whatever else he could make on the side as a lawyer. No problem there. But then there was a federal election last October and the Liberals came to power.
Carignan slipped down to leader of the opposition in the Senate at $180,500 a year.

He got a whole bunch of Conservative senators to look after, a lot of administration, and less time to make money on the side. Prime Minister Justin Trudeau changed the Liberal side of the Senate. He tossed all his Liberal senators out of the Liberal caucus and declared them all “independents.”

Their salaries all went down to $142,400, the same as any backbench senator. Senate Liberal opposition leader James Cowan did not automatically graduate to the highest-paying job as Senate government leader at $222,500 a year. Instead, Cowan became merely Senate Liberal leader, as boss of Trudeau’s new Liberal independents. And Cowan’s salary dropped down to $142,400 a year, the same level as that of any other “independent.”

There was more bad news. The auditor general had done a big investigation of dozens of senators and told Cowan that he had to pay back $10,397 in misspent Senate expense money.  As for Carignan, he owed $3,516. Both men immediately paid back the money they owed and got to keep their new jobs.

That’s how the Senate works. It’s not enough just to sit around and watch politics. You have to watch how you spend the Senate money as well.

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Richard Cleroux is a freelance reporter and columnist on Parliament Hill. His e-mail address is
[email protected].