Editor:
Re: Burnaby council pulls salary disclosure resolution from UBCM resolution with list, NOW, March 26
Here's the thing, Derrick Corrigan knew what he was getting himself into when he got involved in running to become mayor of Burnaby, way back when, and he knew that no pension rights were attached to the position of mayor or councillors.
Why is this issue coming up and what is it Coun. Nick Volkow ultimately is looking for - to create a policy where all municipal politicians are entitled to publicly funded pensions?
If so, I contend that politicians, period, should not be entitled to publicly funded pensions because if we look back in history, no politician was eligible to receive pensions because the original politicians put their names forward in order to provide a service to the public, without consideration of receiving more than out-of-pocket expenses for their service, and it was for a term or two, but definitely not long term.
For Volkow to bring this up appears to be suggesting that municipal politicians should be entitled politicians.
As far as I'm concerned, political service should be short term and not made into a career, which is never what it was intended to be.
Perhaps we need to take this suggestion off of the table and reaffirm the current policy, and perhaps even reviewing whether politicians at any level should qualify for publicly funded pensions, as well as imposing term-limits on all politicians, federal, provincial and municipal.
Wayne McQueen, Burnaby
