On May 1, 2001, the IRPP launched a monthly cyber-column by former Southam News award-winning foreign correspondent and Gazette editor, James Ferrabee. It may be used by newspapers or magazines, or as background for editorials without charge, but with attribution to the IRPP.

Members of Parliament, senators and prime ministers in Canada are remunerated under an elaborate system of salaries and pensions that is generous for many, but provides little or nothing for four people who happen to be former prime ministers.

The salary of an MP is now $150,000, with add-ons if they become committee chairs or parliamentary secretaries. Senators also receive a salary of $150,000. The prime minister earns $300,000.

After serving six years in Parliament, members get a pension that depends on their length of service after those six years. The pension of a senator also depends on his or her length of service.

But there are four former prime ministers who get allowances ranging from adequate to miserly to nothing. And these are people who represent Canada both in the country and overseas. They get little recognition from the federal government, even though they have the lifetime title of right honourable, which imposes on them responsibilities as well as privileges, whether they want them or not.

For prime ministers who have served four years in office, the pension is two-thirds of their annual salary as prime ministers. It is relatively generous.

When Prime Minister Jean Chrétien left office, his salary was $278,400, which means his allowance is roughly $185,600 annually. But a decade earlier, when Prime Minister Mulroney left office, his salary was $134,300, which translates into an annual allowance of about $89,400. Neither allowance is high compared with the pensions enjoyed by senior executives at large Canadian corporations.

An example of those who are left out is the Right Honorable Kim Campbell, 59, prime minister for a brief period from June 25 to November 4, 1993. She was first elected in 1988, so she had neither six years of service as a member of Parliament nor four years of service as prime minister and, therefore, didn't qualify for a pension.

Prime Minister Chrétien appointed her consul-general in Los Angeles for four years. Since then she has taught political science at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. She chaired Council of Women World leaders from 2000 to 2003; from 2003 to 2005, she was president of the International Women's Forum. She was a founder of the Club of Madrid and in 2004 she became the secretary general of that organization.

Another is the Right Honorable John N. Turner, 78, who became prime minister briefly after Pierre Elliott Trudeau retired in 1984. He was beaten by Brian Mulroney in a general election the same year. Turner is a Rhodes Scholar and served 15 years in Parliament, most of them in the cabinet. He held the posts of minister of justice, attorney-general and minister of finance.

Despite his long and exceptional record in Ottawa, his pension is described as "pathetic" by someone who knows him. Yet he, like the others, is sought after as a speaker and teacher and has attended dozens of international conferences on finance and world affairs representing Canada. Most of the time, like the others, he is expected to pay for these trips himself.

The Right Honorable Joe Clark, 68, was first elected to the House of Commons in 1972. He became leader of the Progressive Conservative Party and leader of the Opposition in 1976. On June 4, 1979, he became prime minister of the minority government, which was defeated March 3, 1980.

Even though he lost the leadership of the party to Brian Mulroney in 1983, he subsequently served in the key posts of foreign affairs and constitutional affairs in the Mulroney government from 1984 to 1993. In all, he served 25 years in the House of Commons. His last term in the Commons was between 2000 and 2004, so his pension is likely considerably higher than Turner's.

Finally, the Right Honourable Paul Martin, 69, took office on December 12, 2003, succeeding another Liberal, Jean Chrétien. After an election in 2004 that produced a minority government, he survived until late 2005, when his government was defeated in the Commons and in a subsequent election in early 2006, by Stephen Harper's Conservatives.

He was first elected to the House of Commons in 1988 and was finance minister through most of the 1990s, so he would qualify for a pension. But Mr. Martin was a successful businessman before he went into politics and would not be dependent on the pension.

Martin and the others get little recognition as former prime ministers. Now they are rarely invited to state dinners (at one time it was automatic), and they get no financial help to attend conferences or to teach at universities.

In short, their own country appears to regard them as nonpersons rather than as Canadians who made signal contributions to Canada as prime ministers and senior ministers. And if they were encouraged to do so, they could continue to contribute to their country as informal ambassadors in many different ways.

James Ferrabee, a former domestic and foreign correspondent for Southam News, writes a monthly column for the Institute for Research on Public Policy. He can be contacted at jferrabee@pppoe.ca.