Doug Currie to collect more than $70K in severance after leaving politics

Doug Currie, who resigned from his seat in the P.E.I. Legislature and position of education minister last week, will receive severance pay of $71,497.

That's in addition to his pension as a former MLA.

Outgoing MLAs receive severance of one month's pay for every year of service, to a maximum of one year's base salary. As a cabinet minister for more than a decade, Currie is entitled to the maximum amount.

In total, taxpayers have paid out more than $750,000 in severance for the dozen MLAs who've left office since the start of 2015, including those who failed to win back their seats in that year's election.

In the throne speech that year Wade MacLauchlan's new government promised to bring forward proposals to reduce MLA severance packages.

Under a section entitled Living Within Our Means, the speech promised a review of MLA compensation and benefits, including "proposals to reduce transitional allowances."

No proposals have yet been put forward.

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