How much should we pay our MLAs in Alberta? It’s a simple enough question, but one with a complicated history rooted in decades of cynical, manipulative and at times laughably hypocritical politics.
The question popped up last January when members of the United Conservative Party caucus used their voting power on a legislative committee to give all MLAs a 2.4 per cent pay hike—raising their annual base salary to $123,838, an increase of $2,902. The minority of NDP members on the committee all voted against the raise, saying it was tone deaf at a time when many Albertans were struggling with the cost of living.
The UCP members argued the raise was hardly an exercise in gouging taxpayers. MLAs hadn’t had a pay increase in more than a decade. In fact, because of two pay cuts, in 2015 and 2019, MLAs were actually making less money in early 2025 than they were in 2014, when the base salary was $134,000.
But even this small, once-in-a-decade hike created a PR headache for the UCP, not just because the NDP voted against it but because over the years conservative politicians in Alberta have made this into a political minefield for themselves.
Before 1993, Alberta politicians were not only well paid but enjoyed a “gold-plated” pension plan 40 per cent higher than the average Canadian politician. Realizing this could hurt the government in that spring’s election, premier Ralph Klein scrapped the plan altogether.
Klein’s move was politically popular but also a cynical overreaction that indirectly led to MLAs later finding surreptitious ways of compensating themselves, such as paying elected members to sit on various committees. That in turn created a crisis for then-premier Alison Redford during the 2012 election campaign, when the public discovered some MLAs had been paid $1,000 a month for sitting on a committee that hadn’t met since 2008. Redford apologized and ordered her MLAs to pay back “every penny” they had received.
Sandwiched in between these two crises was then-premier Ed Stelmach’s faceplant when, after winning the 2008 election, he and his cabinet colleagues voted behind closed doors to give themselves a whopping pay hike: 34 per cent for Stelmach and 30 per cent for the ministers. After a public outcry, and with the province hitting a recession, Stelmach announced in 2009 he’d be taking a 15 per cent wage cut. But it turned out he only cut his “premier’s allowance,” the extra money he was paid as premier. The cut to his total salary was closer to 5 per cent.
Public suspicions of government pay took another hit when Jim Prentice’s Progressive Conservative government in 2015 and Jason Kenney’s UCP government in 2019 announced 5 per cent pay cuts not as an altruistic move but as a manipulative negotiating tactic against civil servants in contract talks. Kenney went further, undermining the value of MLAs themselves. During the 2019 campaign he said, “Alberta’s UCP will give voters the power to fire their MLAs if they break promises.” In the party’s Twitter feed, “FIRE” was in all caps.
This plays into the cynical narrative that politicians cannot be trusted. And it’s not a far step removed from the argument that politicians don’t deserve a decent salary.
But don’t they?
BC’s opposition leader says politicians must be fairly compensated: “You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.”
The irony for politicians is that when they put the question to third-party experts, hoping to kill the issue, the experts say something like: “The premier’s compensation is inadequate and not commensurate with the duties, obligations and responsibilities of the office.” This was the finding of retired Supreme Court justice John Major, who in 2012 wrote a government-commissioned report into MLA pay and perks. He recommended that then-premier Alison Redford receive a $100,000 pay increase, taking her annual salary to $335,000, the same as a senior chief justice.
A mortified Redford rejected the recommendation.
But shouldn’t an Alberta premier at least be paid as much as, say, a deputy minister, a member of the civil service who today makes $312,884? Instead, Danielle Smith receives the base pay of $123,838 plus a premier’s allowance of $66,810, bringing her total “base” pay to $190,648. Add in some retirement benefits and it’s closer to $210,000.
By comparison, after a 16-year wage freeze, Ontario bumped up its politicians’ salaries by 35 per cent this year, with the premier now making $282,000. British Columbia’s premier makes $227,000.
In April, BC opposition leader John Rustad said politicians “who give up their prime earning years” need to be fairly compensated. He added: “You pay peanuts, you get monkeys.”
It’s a cynically framed comment that goes to the nub of the question over MLA pay and perks. It’s a particularly thorny issue in Alberta, where the actions of politicians themselves have made it an almost impossible question to answer.
Graham Thomson is a political analyst, member of the Legislature Press Gallery and former Edmonton Journal political columnist.
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