Livingstone-Macleod's MLA is weighing in on his government's choice to cut the pay of MLA's and the Premier.

Roger Reid says they need to lead by example.

"We realize that the provinces finances are tight. They're not outstanding. We all know that we all need to play our part in that and I think for lot's of us, especially those of us who've been in business, we understand that the things you take, as those in charge, to make sure that the business is sustainable, so it can continue on and ride out the rough time."

Reid says people shouldn't read more into it than a move by the government to at least trim some of the fat.

"Us taking a cut is certainly not a sign to say, "You know what? We're cutting public sector jobs, we're going wage rollbacks." We are still looking at our numbers but we have a commitment too, especially around education and health care, to maintain or increase the spending that happens. Those are big budget pieces for us."

The UCP may have to deal with the issue of wages for provincial employees sooner than they thought.

A court ruling will force the Government into arbitration as early as next week, however Reid says the government is appealing it, and he's not sure how that's going to go.

"You know our motivation behind Bill 9 was really to make sure we had all the facts and figures to be able to negotiate in good faith with our public sector workers. Out of a 49-billion dollar budget, 24-billion of that is related to public sector wages and benefits, so we simply want to be good stewards of that."

The province wanted to wait on negotiations until they got the report back from an independent auditor going over the province's books right now.

That report is expected next month.

 

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