The Wall government is doing some belt tightening of its own in advance of what is expected to be a tight budget because of falling oil revenues.
Friday morning Premier Brad Wall announced a wage freeze that will apply to MLAs, senior government officials, Crown corporations managers and other executives.
Wall says he wants to lead by example and has included all of these groups in forgoing a 2.4 per cent wage increase which was scheduled to take effect in April.
The wage increase is a basic cost of living raise that is tied to the rate of inflation.
The premier says the move will result in savings of about $15 million.
He calls it a one-year pause while the government looks closely at the numbers in an attempt to figure out how to make up for a revenue shortfall that could total more than $800 million.
“That’s a five to seven per cent reduction in revenue for government, which is manageable with some tough decisions, but not insignificant,” Wall says.
We will get a clearer picture of how the government plans to accomplish these savings when the budget comes out this spring.
The premier says the fiscal pain may have to be shared.
“That will be part of budget finalization is whether or not this action that we can take as a government should extend to a mandate or a pause for a year at least for negotiations on any contracts,” he says.
The wage freeze will cover the 2015/16 fiscal year for executive government and the 2015 fiscal year for Crown corporations.
As well, the premier has written to school divisions and post-secondary institutions requesting they apply the same policy.
In order for the wage freeze to apply to all MLAs, it must be approved by the board of internal economy that governs things like politicians’ salaries.
However, the government has a majority on that board so the policy change can still be passed if the NDP opposes.