Re: "A gift to die for," Oct. 18.
The old boy/girl network of the B.C. legislature will never cease to amaze me.
We have a person who has been retained in the position of clerk of the legislature for 16 years after the normal retirement age of 65, following which he was maintained on contract for an additional two years. In other words, George MacMinn has benefitted post-retirement by approximately $3 million, which is more than most people can hope to earn in a lifetime.
Where is the B.C. government's succession-planning process? If the government had been so hard up for MacMinn's advice on legislature operations, and given the rare need for such advice, would it not have made more sense to agree to call upon his expertise when the need arose, and pay him on a pro-rata basis for time spent, as one would do with a lawyer?
But I forget, the government is playing with our money, so good stewardship of the public purse is not a given.
Additionally, I am not impressed with MacMinn's munificent gesture to give back the $500,000 (less taxes) should he (hopefully) survive to September 2013. I would have been more impressed had he taken the straightforward approach and taken fees only for time spent consulting.
Gordon Wheatley
Victoria
