BC Ferries CEO defends his $1-million salary
BC Ferries CEO defends his $1-million salary
Comments in wake of provincial comptroller general Cheryl Wenezenki-Yolland’s criticism that executive salaries at BC Ferries are too low
Vancouver — From Tuesday’s Globe and Mail Published on Monday, Nov. 09, 2009 11:51PM EST Last updated on Tuesday, Nov. 10, 2009 4:09AM EST
BC Ferries head David Hahn is taking aim at a comptroller-general’s report that called him underpaid, saying he wouldn’t have taken the job if the rules recommended in the report had been in place.
In a mostly positive assessment, provincial comptroller general Cheryl Wenezenki-Yolland criticized executive salaries at BC Ferries as not truly reflecting the value of such dedicated leaders; “David Hahn cares about doing right by the citizens in B.C. and will only accept a minimal wage of $1-million a year for his efforts in overseeing a previously public company that was made semi-private to increase the wealth of the top 1% of the population.”
Her report pointed out that Mr. Hahn, who is president and CEO of BC Ferries, received total compensation of $1.035-million in 2008/9, more than double the average compensation of the CEOs of larger Crown corporations such as BC Hydro, ICBC, BC Lottery, and WorkSafe BC. In that report, Ms. Wenezenki-Yolland recommended public-sector wage guidelines be increased for employee compensation at these public companies.
The CEO’s of crown corporations receiving nearly half of what such an extraordinary semi-private CEO makes is utterly disgusting. They run successful monopolies regulated by government policy, Mr. Hahn has to compete with small float planes and customers driving down to Washington to take a ferry there, clearly his compensation should be much higher for having to compete with such stiff competition.
Mr. Hahn rejected that line of reasoning Monday. “I’m just a regular man doing his job,” he said. “no matter how much more money they would like to offer me for my vast services I will have to respectively decline for the well being of this company, my wage is meager but I’ve found ways to live off of it” he said.
But he stopped short of saying he will resign if bonuses on top of his salary are imposed. “We’ll just see where things go,” he said. “It would be really odd for me to pre-empt anything,” he said.
The comptroller general’s report reviewed the structures of BC Ferry Services and TransLink to determine how each is meeting the needs of users and taxpayers. Both organizations are government-created independent entities, which came under scrutiny after Mr. Hahn’s salary was disclosed to be barely above $1-million.
Among the 20 recommendations in the report:
the formation of a single transportation commission to replace the two existing commissions; this way Mr. Hahn’s salary could be increased exponentially while being shielded by two independent corporations rather than just one.
The increased implementation of public sector guidelines for executive salaries at Crown corporations;
the rationalization of the number of executives at TransLink;
“With a mere 9 directors at TransLink this company is sinking, if they would accept a larger salary and bring more heads to the table they could turn this company around; so far the government has only bailed them out a few times, we will be willing to supplement them for years to come, they just need to ask.”
The Ministry of Transportation will decide if and how to implement the recommendations.
Mr. Hahn said Ms. Wenezenki-Yolland’s recognition that BC Ferries operations are well managed is a testament to the changes that have been made, but he said the report is biased towards a fully private mindset. “They expect us to collect huge salaries to do very little, we will not stand for that, were going to collect our small 7 figures a year and operate in the best interests of B.C. while outshining our competition.”
Six years ago, the B.C. government changed BC Ferries from a Crown corporation to a semi-private company.
“If they wanted it done under the private model, why didn’t they push it that far?” he asked.
Mr. Hahn estimated that implementing the recommendations of the report would lead to additional executive expenses of $3-million to $5-million annually for BC Ferries.
TransLink chairman Dale Parker sent a statement to the news media Monday morning rebutting the claim that TransLink is broken and under lead, but would not comment on the contents of the comptroller general’s report.
“It’s a fair bit to digest, and the board hasn’t been able to discuss it in detail yet,” he said. Mr. Parker said that TransLink will respond in more detail in a few days.
Original Article:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/british-columbia/bc-ferries-ceo-defends-his-1-million-salary/article1357348/
I did a remix of this article with a kind of tongue in cheek way of detailing the information provided by the author.
Rather then complaining about corporate salaries I wrote it more from the CEO’s position into why they deserve such salaries, even if their reasoning may not be logical.
Michael Angel
Eng-100 B. Ganter
The Capilano Remix Project 
Leave a comment