As Ontario Premier Dalton McGuinty toured a state-of-the-art chemistry lab at Carleton University Friday, he said one thing he'd like Ottawa city council to look at is freezing government wages -- just like McGuinty did at the provincial level.
"I would invite all of them to take a long, hard close look at what we are doing at the provincial level and to give some serious thought as to whether they should be adopting this approach," McGuinty said.
Ontario Finance Minister Dwight Duncan introduced a public sector funding freeze on wages and benefits in Thursday's provincial budget. Only municipal employees were spared.
Coun. Rick Chiarelli took the idea and plans to introduce a motion at the next city council meeting scheduled two weeks from now that would follow the provincial government's decision to freeze government salaries.
It could save at least a million dollars.
"Sixty to 70 per cent of our costs are labour in the city," said Chiarelli, "and if we can freeze council and management and exempt staff pay for two years, that will show leadership. I think that we need to do at this time."
Any Ottawa pay freeze would not touch the city's unionized workers. The motion would affect the mayor, city council, senior managers and all non-unionized staff.
Police and firefighter salaries are often the biggest expense for most local governments. In an interview with The Canadian Press, Duncan said municipalities should negotiate with unions to keep a lid on those salaries as well.
With a report from CTV Ottawa's Norman Fetterley and files from The Canadian Press
