Connections: Running Government like a business

Here’s a story that made the news the other day:

The cost of the Translink board of directors has skyrocketed over the last five years going up hundreds of thousands of dollars.  …

The board chair alone in 2010 earned $125,000, almost the entire cost of the whole board just five years previous.

NDP Transportation critic Harry Bains “it’s outrageous the way they are spending money on themselves.” …

Jordan Bateman with the Canadian Taxpayers Federation says for the most part taxpayers don’t even know who sits on the Translink board and there’s no accountability.

Critics from Left and Right: the NDP and Bateman.  But what interested me was the medium that reported the story:

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Who, I wondered, owned CKNW?

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And who owns Corus?

Corus Entertainment’s voting majority is held by the company’s founder James Shaw and his family, which also owns cable operator and media group Shaw Communications Inc.

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And who is James Shaw?

James Robert “J. R.” Shaw, OC, AOE (born August 14, 1934) is a Canadian businessman. He is the executive chairman of Shaw Communications.

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It was his sons, however, who ran the businesses that make up Shaw.  One, Jim, recently retired – lucratively:

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More interestingly, how much did he make?

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As the Globe notes:

In the end, the Shaw family gets away with it only because the other shareholders don’t complain about it. Why don’t they complain? Because despite all the fat, the company remains ridiculously profitable, just like the rest of the major players in the Canadian cable and phone racket.

In other words, they run a healthy, if fat, company, delivering services Canadians want, and providing wealth for their investors.

But what intrigues me (more than the $6 million bonus – sorry, I mean “non-equity incentive plan”) is the $176,921 Jim Shaw makes in “Other Compensation” which, I venture, is the amount he gets for sitting on other boards – somewhat more than the $100,000 the TransLink board chair makes.

So does the TransLink chair deserve that kind of compensation?  (Disclosure: I sat on the selection panel for the TransLink board – providing nominees for the Mayor’s Council to choose.  Each time, we had to review the compensation for board members, which, on the times I was there, was kept the same.  There’s been no increase since 2008.)

One can make the argument that it’s in the range of what private-sector equivalents make – probably below, as Shaw illustrates.  And TransLink is one large, complex organization, which is the reason that a ‘professional’ board was established by the Province, as opposed to having the organization actually run by the region’s mayors.  And critics can have a good argument over that too.

My point is simply this: Should government be run like a business?  I suspect that some of the perennial critics, like Jordan, would argue in favour.   (Comment below, Jordan!)   If so, why then criticize the compensation of one and not the other?  Isn’t that part of the deal?  Or make the case that a government entity like TransLink shouldn’t be run like a business – no large compensation packages, no bonuses, no comparison.

But it might be helpful, until then, if reporters from CKNW explain what that context is.  They could, for instance, start with their bosses.