Farm Credit Canada’s regional office in Casselman, Ontario. (Nelson Zandbergen photo)
Farmers Forum staff
OTTAWA — The farmers’ lender, Farm Credit Canada, paid bonuses to every senior manager in all three years of the pandemic, records show.
The Regina-based lender was one of nine federal agencies to pay 100 per cent of executives a bonus year after year, reported the Ottawa-based Blacklock’s Reporter.
For Farm Credit, that meant that all 27 senior managers received annual bonuses in 2020, 2021 and 2022, including managers who encouraged drawing up a blacklist of farmers who showed empathy toward the Freedom Convoy protest in Ottawa one year ago.
The information was based on data requested by MP Brad Redekopp (CON—Saskatoon West) who asked, “How many senior managers received full performance pay?”
Bonuses are not entitlements, nor based on department results, but are based on leadership and must be earned and most federal offices reported few if any managers collecting a bonus since 2019.
Treasury Board guidelines set bonus rates at 15 to 39 percent of salary. The Government of Canada does not disclose a Sunshine List detailing actual payments to six-figure employees by name.
MPs in 2013 rejected Bill C-461 An Act To Amend The Access To Information Act that would have mandated the naming of employees earning more than $188,000 a year.
