I feel like a victim. I don't like the feeling. I would, by far, prefer to be the victimizer in the limited dichotomy of victim-victimizer. It pays better and it's generally good for a lot more laughs. Victims bitch and moan and feel powerless; other than grief counsellors, no one really wants to surround themselves with victims. Victimizers on the other hand are usually pretty upbeat, party a lot, don't really give a damn about the effects of their actions on others and never seem to care that some day, sweet retribution might be visited on their mangy asses.
Given a chance, I'd prefer a world without either. But that doesn't seem like an option.
I feel like a victim every time I open a newspaper or read one online. At the top of the hour and on the half hour, I feel victimized if I happen to have the radio on and am assaulted by the news. I feel violated when I walk into a grocery store, open a hydro bill, read a menu at a restaurant I haven't been to for a couple of months or pull up to a gas pump. And I can't even think about the therapy I need after taking my car in for service earlier this week.
Powerlessness is always at the root of victimization and powerlessness is pretty much the defining arc of most of our lives, regardless of how much or little control we delude ourselves into thinking we have over our own destiny. Simply put, there is very little we can do about most of the things that victimize us every day. Worse, when we're given the chance of being able to do something about them, it's more often than not just an illusion. Thus is created the rich soil from which cynicism flourishes.
Just so no one in town feels like I'm victimizing them, let's focus the spotlight on the provincial level for a moment. More specifically, since it's been in the news, let's focus on the rather generous remuneration and pension benefits of the president of BC Ferries, Mr. David Hahn.
Dave's done a good job of presiding over BC Ferries. I have absolutely no basis upon which to make that statement other than it seems to be the consensus of everyone who wants you to believe it's true. I ride the ferry about as often as I have birthdays. My overall impression of them is they're very expensive boat rides with really bad food; but they're a fascinating place from which to observe human behaviour.
But let's assume, for a moment, Dave's done the bang-up job everyone says he's done. Without stating the obvious, a hardworking taxpayer would like to believe someone pulling down over a million bucks a year is doing a better than average job, the average salary in this province falling well short of a million bucks. You'd also like to think someone making that kind of scratch would be able to build up a comfortable RSP and, barring nasty gambling, hooker and coke habits, put away a tidy nestegg for his/her retirement. I'm pretty sure you would and I know I would.
There was a mild ruckus a couple of years ago when Dave's paycheque hit a million bucks. Perhaps to deflect such criticism, the board of BC Ferries has been a bit less generous with his pay increases - though let us not labour under the illusion it is not going up at a rate that would make us all feel like winners, victimizers perhaps, were we as fortunate - choosing instead to boost his pension. What the heck, it's not like we want the poor guy to eat cat food in his dotage.
But really, they recently upped his pension by $237k a year. I suspect that amount is quite a bit more than any pension you're expecting. I even suspect it's more than you've ever made in a year. But it's not the total figure, just the increase. When Dave retires in two years, at the advanced age of 62, he'll have to figure out how to get along on a mere $315,000 annually. Now, this is a real step down from the $1.1 million he pulled down last year but the experts do suggest we need less money once we've retired.
When word finally got out about this - and it hasn't been a secret, just a slow news week - there was a firestorm of criticism from the most likely source: the opposition NDP. Chrissy Clark, B.C.'s newest premiere, didn't have much to say other than it was "too rich." By contrast, she did have something to say when she was running for the Liberal leadership and Dave was cryin' the blues about having to raise ferry rates by as much as 50 per cent on some of the more popular routes. She was shocked, shocked he'd have such temerity when the ferry corp had the highest paid executives of any public sector employees in the whole province. Her government, including Transport Minister Blair Lekstrom, is doing the old, "Ferries? What ferries?" routine after news of Dave's pension popped though.
But the people who approved the deal, the board of directors, has gone on the offensive - and what a completely appropriate use of that word - defending the deal. In defending it, they trotted out the old chestnut that they had to do something to keep Dave from being lured away by other Canadian and U.S. companies which were trying to recruit him, quite possibly companies they either run or on whose board they sit. Of course, this is a variation on the vacuous argument we have to pay top executives - municipal administrators, senior managers, etc. - top dollar because that's what they'd make elsewhere in the cushy club of high earners.
The problem with this is boards of directors are made up of the very people who benefit from and continue to pull this con game on the rest of us. According to the 2009-10 annual report for BC Ferries, the most recent one, directors were paid from $149k at the high end to $67.5k at the low. This wasn't what they made at their day jobs, just what they got for being on the board. In their day jobs, they enjoy the benefits recommended to their own boards by compensation consultants who fuel the shell game of increasing executive compensation. It's pretty much a closed system with a vicious feedback loop.
But short of bitching and moaning, there's nothing we can do about it. Let's face it: we're the victims. And we'll feel even more victimized when, some time this year, our own employers - including the B.C. government - tell us there's no money for even a 2 per cent raise to our already meager wages.
But hey, there'll be a municipal election this fall. Maybe we can start to change things at home. Or will that just be another illusion?
