Introducing Bill C-47 for second reading in the Commons Thursday, Government House Leader Don Boudria noted the rare spirit of bipartisanship that had allowed the legislation to progress that far. "This bill is an example of Parliament coming together to act" he said, "on what is a sensitive issue." Now, what do you suppose that issue was? What delicate matter could have led MPs to put aside their partisan differences? National security? Minority rights? The price of gas on weekends? Er, no. None of those. The issue that inspired such high-minded collegiality, the urgent national priority that indeed compelled MPs to whisk the bill through second reading, committee of the whole and third reading in less than two hours was in fact a whacking great pay increase for - would you believe it - those very same MPs.

Sensitive issue, indeed. So sensitive that the bill could not even be put to a recorded vote, MPs having unanimously agreed the previous day that the bill would be "deemed" to have passed on the conclusion of debate. So not only will members of the opposition parties, despite their professed hostility to the pay increase, see their wallets fattened just the same, but even government backbenchers can disavow any responsibility, having been spared the obligation of standing in the house and voting for it. Since all are complicit, none can be held to account.

The issue here is not the amount MPs are paid, nor even the size of the raise they have just awarded themselves - though both might come as a surprise to many voters. MPs now receive a basic compensation package worth about $113,000 a year. I say "about" since the package is divided, cunningly, into a basic salary of $64,400, a tax-free expense allowance of $21,300 (equal to roughly twice that amount before tax, i.e. if it were paid as salary) and a housing allowance of $6,000 a year.

On top of that, there are the supplements paid to various office-holders, from $7,500 for a deputy party whip to $69,920 for the Prime Minister. And on top of that are the various benefits in kind to which MPs are entitled: free flights (64 round-trip tickets to anywhere in Canada, first class), free postage and so on. That's not to mention the infamous pension plan, whose terms remain, even after the 1994 "reforms," far more generous than anything available in the private sector.

The legislation MPs rammed through with such stealthy alacrity - on the last day before rising for their three-month summer break - would raise both the basic salary and the tax-free allowance by 2 per cent per year for the life of this parliament, retroactive to January 1 of this year. In addition, changes already approved will double the housing allowance to $12,000 per annum.

All told, I calculate the ordinary MP would receive compensation totalling nearly $128,000 in 2001 - a 13 per cent increase over 4 years.

Perhaps MPs are worth that much. Perhaps they aren't. Certainly MPs seem to feel they are: most of what debate there was Thursday was taken up with complaints of how little the public understands the demands of the job. One opposition MP opined that his pay was not out of line when compared with that of "doctors, lawyers, professional athletes, professional entertainers and heads of corporations." Whether MPs should be classed with professional entertainers is an interesting question (do actors have a pension plan?), though an equally useful benchmark might be the average income of their constituents. The Prime Minister takes great glee in pointing out that many members of the Ottawa press corps are paid better than MPs, which causes much looking at shoes in the scrums. But there's a rather crucial difference, surely: reporters don't get to set their own pay scales. Nor can they rely upon the coercive power of the state to enforce their demands, should their employers prove unwilling.

The issue, then, is not pay but process. I didn't notice any shortage of candidates for Parliament in the last election. If they thought they should be paid more, why didn't they pipe up then? Failing that, MPs might have agreed to be bound by the expert advice of the independent Blais Commission, which recommended against any pay rise, as well as converting the tax-free allowance into its cash equivalent. And even if, in their wisdom, MPs should have decided to ignore the commission's findings and help themselves to some more of the public's money, they might at least have picked a less undemocratic way of going about it.

Instead, we are treated to this breathtaking display of contempt for the electorate: by all-party agreement, after two hours' debate, without a recorded vote, on the last day of the session. Is this the principle by which we are governed: take the money and run?