Stelmach needs more dog, less pay

By Don Braid, Calgary Herald October 15, 2009 6:48 AM

For Premier Ed Stelmach, the best part of Big Speech Day came hours before he even started talking on TV. The premier and his cabinet voted to slash their own pay by rolling back some of the big increase they gave themselves in early 2008. I'm told the rollback, to be announced today, will be "substantial," although not the entire average pay hike of 34 per cent.Those raises prompted outrage in May 2008; they were a huge chunk for politicians to take right after winning an election. Cabinet ministers increased their take by more than $40,000.

The politicians might have got away with it had the boom rolled on. But today the raises have become a serious practical problem --they severely undercut Stelmach's case for a public sector wage freeze. He called for that freeze in Wednesday's speech without mentioning his own pay cut. That's because the speech was recorded weeks ago, in chunks, while the pay cut wasn't worked out until Wednesday. If the timing sounds exactly backward, who cares? There's no wrong way to do the right thing; and this was clearly the right move for the moment.

In arguing for the cuts to cabinet, Stelmach said they couldn't possibly ask for two years of pay freezes without absorbing more pain themselves. The job will be tough enough in any case. In the speech, Stelmach said civil service managers will have their pay frozen for two years. He will ask the rest of the public sector to "share in this effort. "That public sector includes everybody who gets a paycheque directly or indirectly for the government; the province's own workers, doctors, nurses, professors, teachers, and all staff at all their institutions.

It's a huge interest group comprising hundreds of thousands. When Ralph Klein took it on in the early 1990s, forcing five-per-cent pay cuts, there were demonstrations and marches all over the province. Then, as now, the province had a massive pay problem. If wages and salaries rise next year at this year's rate of about four per cent, the cost to government will climb by almost $800 million. (more)