On the heels of a media and political storm over the former CEO of Manitoba Public Insurance accepting a $50K ‘insurance policy’ payment, MPI’s Marilyn McLaren has decided to end the contract and return half of the money.
According to Canadian Press and the Crown agency’s website, McLaren has ended the transitional contract and returned $27,300.
The news about the McLaren payout was initially uncovered during an exchange between McLaren’s successor Dan Guimond and Progressive Conservative MPI critic Kelvin Goertzen during a legislative standing committee meeting last week.
“I view Ms. McLaren’s contract as an insurance policy and when there is a transition of the CEO you don’t know how the CEO is going to, if it’s going to work out,” Guimond told Goertzen.
“There is also the possibility of the CEO saying, ‘that wasn’t for me’ and deciding to walk away, and there’s also health. I could get sick and so on, so from a risk mitigation perspective, and that is what this contract is about is risk mitigation, and if I was to leave or get injured or not be able to perform my duties then the board of directors has an insurance policy so to speak that has access to the previous CEO to buy time to find another CEO.”
The real bone of contention was that she had accepted the one-year, $50,000 contract, but had not done any work with MPI, according to the Winnipeg Free Press.
According to the new CEO, the McLaren contract was meant to be a payment to place her on standby in case he quit or fell ill.
Under the contract, McLaren was to be paid $3,900 per month during the term (Feb. 22 to Feb. 22, 2015) in exchange for working 2.75 hours a month for MPI and to make herself available to perform services within 48 hours.
The government said she was required to be available on 48 hours of notice to provide advice, but the Opposition replied it was unbelievable that MPI was paying someone for no work.
