Wheatland County councillor donates entire 2020 salary to build a playground in Cluny, Alta.

CALGARY -

The tiny hamlet of Cluny, about 100 km east of Calgary has a new playground, courtesy of one of Wheatland County’s councillors.

But Coun. Jason Wilson didn’t go the usual route of lobbying his council colleagues to cough up tax dollars for the playground.

Instead the 24-year-old donated his entire salary from last year to have the playground built.

“I definitely noticed the hit but it's the same hit everybody in Alberta is facing right now. I put myself in their shoes,” said Wilson.

“My family's just been around that community and they've really been a part of my life. So I wanted to donate back.”

Wilson has long been a strong advocate of smaller government, lower spending and increased personal responsibility.

He says putting his $41,000 annual paycheque into the community project shows he’s putting actions to his words.

“We in Alberta are facing one of the worst economic downturns in this past two years and probably going to get worse over the next three," he said.

"A lot of it is government screw-ups to be quite honest. And the average person isn't at fault for that. I don't agree with those average citizens, their kids and families, being not being able to go outside and play on a playground that the government was refusing to build or whatever the reason is.

"Well, provincial politicians or municipal politicians, federal politicians continue to take a very large salary when their residents are haven't made a salary in a year and a half.”

Wilson did not publicize his donation. He actually tried to keep it out of the public eye, but Word eventually got out, as now Wilson says he hopes it spurs other politicians to consider donating some, or all, of their annual salary back to their communities.

“If you had every MLA say, 'one year out of our four-year term, let's donate something,' I mean, infrastructure for families would go through the roof. And it would bring back the importance of individual donations, if people don't have to rely on government or politicians themselves, they can be reminded, 'hey, we can do this as individuals or a community,'" he said.

"I mean, you have Rachel Notley, Jason Kenney making six-digit salaries, if they donated half of that to something that was important to the average person. How far would that go?"

Wilson admits he isn’t holding his breath that any other politician will step up and follow his lead.

Meanwhile, even though having his donation come to light might be just the sort of news a politician wants heading toward a fall municipal election, Wilson will not be running for re-election.

Instead he will be heading to university in Ireland where he will be studying business.