John Rustad suggests B.C. MLAs don’t get paid enough. Here’s how their pay is determined

In the two earlier cases, politicians from all parties said it would have been bad form to accept an increase when ordinary British Columbians were struggling with job losses and increasingly expensive prices for essentials such as gas and groceries.

Although the Conservatives voted in favour of withholding the raise this year, which would have been on the order of 2.6 per cent based on inflation, Leader John Rustad told the Globe and Mail that MLAs already don’t get paid enough and there should be an independent review into how members salaries are established.

“I’ll put it in very crude terms: You pay peanuts, you get monkeys,” Rustad said last week.

“You need to get some of those young, entrepreneurial people who are in their mid-life, in their prime earning years, that will decide they want to make a difference in politics. But to do that, they have to give up their prime earning years, so how do you compensate, how do you get those people to come and do this?”