Finance Minister Jason Nixon said the civil service has been instructed to review and make changes to the rules to ensure future emergency bonus payments go through Cabinet for approval. “The public service should not be able to unilaterally approve significant overtime payments of this magnitude,” Nixon said in a statement Thursday. “The Public Service Commission has been instructed to undergo a full policy review to ensure that future emergency overtime payments are passed through cabinet. “Until the review is completed and a new policy is confirmed, all future requests will be submitted to the Treasury [headed up by Nixon] to review.” The CBC, gathering information from the government’s sunshine salary list, reported Monday that Dr. Deena Hinshaw, Alberta’s chief medical officer of health, received a bonus of nearly $228,000 for work related to COVID-19 in 2021 — the highest payout of such cash benefits to any provincial public servant since the list was released six years ago. That number, on top of her regular salary, brought Hinshaw’s pay to more than $591,000. The opposition NDP and public sector unions called the payment a deep affront to frontline health workers who have had to work through the COVID-19 pandemic while the government has tried to cut their wages or cut jobs them completely. The payment has also angered some in the ruling United Conservative Party who have long criticized Hinshaw for her role in what they saw as intrusive and unnecessary health restrictions and vaccine rules during the pandemic. Then-finance minister Travis Tuss is now one of seven candidates vying to replace Prime Minister Jason Kenney in a party vote set for October 6. Toews said he was unaware of the payment and said he would also make changes to ensure the cabinet would have the final say on such bonuses. The NDP says Toews should have known about the payment and argues he’s either lying or didn’t have a solid grasp of the department he was supposed to run. “The finance minister needs to know about the province’s finances,” NDP critic Sarah Hoffman told reporters in Edmonton on Thursday. “I’m not surprised that Jason Nixon is trying to find lines to back off and try to distance himself from the guilt [of] Travis Tuss and others are sitting around this cabinet table.” The payment was one of a total of $2.4 million in COVID-19 bonuses paid to 107 employees in the administration. In a statement, Alberta Health said Hinshaw was paid according to a long-standing policy and financial calculation linked to emergencies based on hours worked. “Given the scale of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic, an extraordinary amount of additional work has been required of Dr. Hinshaw,” the statement said.
