FORMERLY THE ROCKY VIEW FIVE VILLAGE WEEKLY
Volume 35, Number 30	OFFICIAL NEWSPAPER FOR THE MD OF ROCKY VIEW #44	Tuesday, July 22, 2008
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Opinion
Instant millionaires
Glenda Borson

Lots of talk last week about the cool $4 million Jack Davis, CEO, Calgary Health Region, is walking away with, in addition to his severance and pension. What an obscene payout for nine years of service! Seems for some, the fastest way to extreme wealth is the exit door. A lot of public health could have been provided with that money, and there are eight others just like him around the province raking in more money than they will ever be able to spend.

As much as I hate to sound like I’m defending them, there are other severance packages that are even more lucrative. Check this out: Glenn Murphy, former CEO Shoppers Drug Mart received $34,441,947; the former CEO of the Bank of Montreal Tony Comper received $13,472,372; For his trouble, James Foote from CN Rail received $14,895,522; Jacqueline Sheppard corporate secretary of Talisman went home with $10,963,280; Wayne Brownlee was compensated $14,237,493 when he left CFO, Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan; and Michael Waites received $8,834,351 when his position with the CPR terminated. Nevertheless, most of those CEOs earned their packages by making their companies a lot of money. Sometimes billions. And those are mostly private companies where the shareholders sometimes have a say, unlike taxpayer-funded golden handshakes. It’s different when the money comes from taxpayers.

The CEOs of some of Alberta’s Health Regions were running deficits and still they got the big bucks. For what, I ask? Running in the red? Long wait times? Unhappy doctors ... sometimes no doctors?

I can’t help but think about how far that money would have gone towards providing more health care services in Alberta. Besides the $4 million, those nine CEOs will get regular severance and very large pensions. It all adds up to tens of millions of dollars. Did we get value? I’m not convinced that we did. I think there are better places for the money within the system.

From what I saw, Davis never acted like he was accountable to the public. Before one courageous Calgary woman came forward, it was routine for women to miscarry in the public waiting room. When that went public, Davis had his underlings face the cameras to tell the hospitals' position - he didn’t want to face the cameras and hard questions.

I would need a lot of convincing before I thought that any of the heads of those boards deserved millions of dollars in compensation. Jack Davis was only on the job for about nine years - and during those nine years he received a salary of a million dollars plus per year.

By contract the interim chief executive officer of Alberta's new health superboard, Charlotte Robb will be paid $550,000 per year. Now I ask you, why did the Calgary Health Region not hire Robb years ago instead of Jack Davis?

But then again, the provincial cabinet members who indirectly oversee such things, just gave themselves a very large salary increase after only seven months on the job, so why would I expect anything else? These outrageous salaries and severance must stop. Somewhere along the line salaries have to be capped at reasonable amounts for any government job, elected or otherwise.

At least that’s the way I see it.

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