Letters to the editor...MPPs deserve `reward' of a pay hike

Dear editor, I want to respond to all of the people who are complaining about the recent pay raise legislated for MPPs in Ontario, particularly Craig Gray of Georgetown. To be completely honest, I am not crazy about politicians. However, I have a great deal of respect for every single person who chooses to run for political office, regardless of level of government or political stripe, for one particular reason: they open their entire lives up to public scrutiny in order to do what they feel is best for their little part of the world. Imagine what it would be like if every decision we make in our careers were under a microscope for everyone to criticize; every little mistake is revealed in the media so that people who know nothing about what we are doing can tell us exactly how we did it wrong. Imagine how it would feel to not to be able to go home to our families every night after work, because our homes are too far away from our workplace to commute every day; we therefore require a second residence where we live alone for much of the year. And if we are lucky enough to live within commuting distance of our workplace, we still have to work nights and weekends because those are the only times when we can directly interact with our employers. While I admit that I only have the IQ of a "soap dish", I cannot see any reason why an intelligent and educated person would want to put themselves through this grief if they didn't have altruistic motives. Otherwise, they could work relatively anonymously for a large corporation, making at least $110,000 per year, and just lobby the government for their selfish goals. I therefore consider this wage increase a REWARD for choosing a career that demands large sacrifices from a largely unappreciative public. Benjamin Atkinson, Acton