'It is jaw dropping': NDP slams UCP for big COVID-19 bonus to health chief

Alberta Opposition Leader Rachel Notley says the United Conservative Party government, particularly former finance minister Travis Toews, must bear the responsibility and fallout for the record-setting six-figure bonus payment to the chief medical officer of health.

By Dean Bennett in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada

Alberta Opposition Leader Rachel Notley says the United Conservative Party government, particularly former finance minister Travis Toews, must bear the responsibility and fallout for the record-setting six-figure bonus payment to the chief medical officer of health.

Notley said Wednesday she isn’t passing judgment on whether the payout to Dr. Deena Hinshaw is merited.

But she said the payout has to be set against a government that, at the same time, was trying to cut the pay of front-line health workers in collective bargaining during the COVID-19 pandemic.

“It is jaw dropping to me that they would then turn around and offer up a 60 per cent bonus to someone who had — by her own admission — chosen not to completely exercise her authority and (instead) hand over decision-making power to an incredibly ill-informed cabinet,” Notley told reporters in Calgary.

The CBC, gleaning information from the government’s sunshine salary list, reported Monday that Hinshaw received a bonus of almost $228,000 for COVID-19 work in 2021 — the highest such cash benefit payout to any provincial civil servant since the list went public six years ago.

That figure, on top of her regular salary, put Hinshaw’s pay at more than $591,000.