Alberta Party: Prentice PCs unload almost $60M in severances over three years

Posted on April 21, 2015 by Vauxhall Advance

While Jim Prentice will bring in the largest tax hike in Alberta history, the Prentice PCs have unloaded almost $60 million in severances over the past three years, the Wildrose announced today.

In the three years from 2011 to 2014, the PCs rolled out $31 million in severance payments across government departments, and nearly $28 million in severances at Alberta Health Services (AHS).

At AHS alone, there were 68 employees who earned six-figure golden handshakes, including sums as high as $737,000 for an Executive Vice President.

“The same old out-of-touch Prentice PCs are taxing families an extra $2500 a year, while soft-landings and golden handshakes for government officials have never been so good,” Wildrose Leader Brian Jean said. “The Prentice plan is to not put a cap on severances across government. The Wildrose priority would stand up for Albertans and immediately put a stop to these severance packages across all areas of government.”

Other highlights of the severances include:
·$6.3 million in one year at Alberta Justice
·$1.4 million in one year at Service Alberta
·$1.3 million over three years at Alberta Culture

While the PCs appeared to disclose high level severances in their “Sunshine List”, they actually passed secret rules to hide disclosure of severances and salaries of some individuals.

Jean demanded the premier come clean with all severance information.
“The PCs called this the gold standard in transparency, but instead it has become the gold standard of secrecy,” Jean said. “Mr. Prentice needs to let Albertan know how many people got secret severance, how much secret severance they got, and why did they get secret severance?”

Standing Up for Albertans: Wildrose’s Five Priorities calls for an aggressive plan that attacks severances across all areas of government by:

·Capping severance agreements for all publicly funded executives; and
·Passing legislation to limit severance packages for all political staff and senior government and agency officials and making ALL severance agreements transparent.