Pay freeze for MPPS extended two years
Mcguinty wants public servants to follow suit
Zap — they’re frozen.
Premier Dalton Mcguinty is extending the three-year wage freeze for MPPS another two years and pleading with all public servants to follow the politicians’ lead.
Mcguinty’s Liberals have enough support in the minority House to amend the Legislative Assembly Act, so MPPS’ base pay will remain at $116,550.
“We’re asking some folks to do some things that are not easy,” the premier told reporters Wednesday at the construction site of the Toronto Western Hospital’s new Krembil Discovery Centre.
“I’ve asked our teachers to participate in a wage freeze. We’re asking the same thing of our doctors,” he said. “In fact, we’ll be calling upon all of our public-sector partners to do their part in terms of helping us eliminating the deficit.”
With this year’s budget shortfall at $16 billion, the Liberals are scrambling for ways to cut costs to balance the books by 2017-18.
“As MPPS, we have frozen our pay for three years. I think it’s important that we continue to lead by example so I’m proposing that we freeze our pay for two more years,” said Mcguinty, who earns $202,974.
Cabinet ministers earn $165,851, Progressive Conservative Leader Tim Hudak gets $180,886 and NDP Leader Andrea Horwath $158,158.
Believing an imposed freeze would be unconstitutional, the Liberals hope unions will voluntarily agree to one.
Finance Minister Dwight Duncan, who will table a budget within the next three weeks, conceded it is a “symbolic” gesture, but sends an important signal to 1.06 million public servants across Ontario. Horwath said her party, which opposed the 25 per cent raises the Liberals and Tories rammed through in 2006, supported the freeze of politicians’ pay, adding MPPS have “generous salaries.” The Tories have long urged a mandatory wage freeze on public servants, so Hudak said it was about time Mcguinty got with the program. “It’s the fair thing to do — it’ll save us $2 billion,” he said.