Mr. MacDonald: Thank you, Mr. Speaker. Last year taxpayers paid each and every government MLA a total of over $1.4 million to sit on internal cabinet policy committees. 

My first question is to the President of the Treasury Board. How are government members appointed to the cabinet policy committees?

Mr. Snelgrove: Mr. Speaker, the selection of the committee members for the cabinet policy is done by the Premier and Executive Council.

The Speaker: The hon. member.

Mr. MacDonald: Thank you very much. Again to the same minister: for the government members appointed to the cabinet policy committees by the Premier through Executive Council, are they appointed by order in council, by regulation, or ministerial order?

Mr. Snelgrove: I guess I’m just from the old club, Mr. Speaker. When somebody tells me to show up at a committee meeting, I go. I really didn’t ask who appointed me.

Mr. MacDonald: Again to the President of the Treasury Board: will the hon. minister provide to this Assembly the statutory instrument by which these members were appointed to these five separate cabinet policy committees and received last year over $1.4 million in payment?

Mr. Snelgrove: Mr. Speaker, we can provide and have provided to this Assembly what every member of this Assembly gets paid from different committees. If the hon. Member for Edmonton-Gold Bar has forgotten his particular amount, I see here he was paid as the chair of the legislative Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

Mr. MacDonald: That’s public.

Mr. Snelgrove: Yeah, it is public, as we were all paid. Who appointed you to that? Amount paid for policy field committees: $11,000, $16,750. Who appointed you to those?

Alberta Hansard, February 18, 2010

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