Merci, Monsieur le President. I wish to speak to the principle of the bill. This is probably one of the shortest bills this Assembly will ever deal with, but I think it's important that the public and media understand what this bill is all about. And I believe that the Member for Thebacha has explained it probably much better than I'm going to try to do right now. But what this is really to do is to replace the current way of calculating MLA's indemnity, or salaries, office holders, and allowances. Right now those are changed according to the consumer price index as of April 1st each year. This is going to move it to a five-year rolling average. And I'm not opposed to that, but I think the timing of the bill is the issue, Mr. Speaker.
And as I understand -- or what the honourable -- the mover indicated was that this is as a result of the high -- relatively high rate of inflation that we're experiencing now. As of April 1st, MLA salaries and indemnities and allowances would go up by 6.8 percent. As of April 1st, that would cost about $350,000. So moving to a five-year rolling average will reduce the increase to 3.02 percent but increase subsequent years by as much as about 2 percent, depending on what the rate of inflation or the consumer price index is until a new equilibrium is established. So I do not support this change for a number of reasons.
First, I just don't think it's good practice for sitting politicians to change their remuneration. There's already perception of conflict and perhaps even a real conflict of interest when we attempt to change our own remuneration. And this is why we actually appoint an independent commission on compensation and benefits every couple of Assemblies to look at these issues and bring back recommendations to us. But those recommendations, when they're brought back to the House, if they're accepted, they're only implemented for the next Assembly so sitting MLAs are not, you know, making changes to their own remuneration, and I think that's a far better practice.
Secondly, Mr. Speaker, I think there's going to be perception that these changes are really interfering with the upcoming collective bargaining with the Union of Northern Workers for the majority of our employees. That contract is coming to an end as of March 31st, 2023, and I expect, as I understand bargaining's probably already started on this, so I think this sets a bad precedent. It's not unlike what happened perhaps in the last Assembly where initially MLAs decided to take a two year pay freeze after some presentations from Cabinet that were akin to the sky is falling. And I think that set us up for a bad set of negotiations in the last Assembly, and I think this is probably going to head us in the same direction, Mr. Speaker.
Thirdly, the last thing I guess I'd like to say about this is that I think this is really about -- the effect of this will be about reducing, you know, our ability to attract quality people to this Assembly and to political life, that we want more representative candidates to come into this place. And I think this is going to probably make it less attractive over time. And I think it also feeds into the narrative that politicians are paid too much, work too little, and are expendable. And I'm not prepared to enter into that narrative, Mr. Speaker.
So for all these reasons, I do not support this bill. However, I'm not opposed to going to a five-year rolling average of consumer price index to calculate increases to remuneration but that should apply to the next Assembly. So at the appropriate time, I will move an amendment to that effect. I don't expect that it's going to pass but we'll see. But I certainly look forward to the debate on this, and I expect and would encourage constituents to contact us about what this bill is really all about. Thanks, Mr. Speaker.