New Brunswick MLAs forget to block pay hike again

• Province'sMLAsdefy law by refusing mandatory pay review

"Unfortunately, there was an oversight," acknowledged senior Liberal cabinet minister DonaldArseneaultabout the recently detected increases.

"There's no excuse for it.It should have been done.It wasnot done but it will be done in the next fall session."

We'll bring forward retroactive legislation to make sure [no raises]are implemented.- Donald Arseneault, Liberal cabinet minister

Initially, no one in government appeared to notice a requirement to pay MLAs more money had been activated by legislation until CBC News asked about the issue last month.

Now that the requirement has been noticed, the plan is to withhold the amounts from MLAs on purpose until they can be cancelled later this fall a fix the province believes to be legal.

"We'll bring forward retroactive legislation to make sure [no raises] are implemented.We are committedto that and that's what we'll do," said Arseneault

No legislation passedon freezes

MLA salaries are governed by the LegislativeAssembly Act and according to that law increases "shall" be paid every year if New Brunswick's economy grows.

An amendmentis required annually to disable the increase and, although the Gallant government publicly announced many times the MLA wage freeze would continue in 2016 and 2017, it failed to pass any legislation to make that happen.

"Government will continue to freezeMLAsalaries for the ninth consecutive year," Finance Minister Cathy Rogers announced during her January budget speech this year, apparently unaware the first of two MLA wage hikes had already been triggered four months earlier.

The MLA salary formula tracks real growth [not including inflation]in New Brunswick's economy as reported by Statistics Canada and everyOct. 1,it grants MLAs 75 per centof any economic increase from the previous year as a pay raise..

Last October, estimates were that New Brunswick's economy had grown 1.9 per cent in 2015 [an amount later revised to 2.3 per cent]and that requireda 1.4per cent pay increase for MLAs on Oct.1, 2016 thefirstin eight years.

A second increase, likely to be oneper cent, is scheduled again forOct. 1this year.It can't be stopped because the Legislaturedoes not reconvene untilOct. 24.

Paying raises impractical

Speaker Chris Collins, who is also responsible for its budget, saidpaying MLAs the raises now that they've beendiscovered is impractical as retroactive cancellation of the increases later this fall would require MLAs to pay all the extra money back.

"I don't think that this is a violation of the legislation," said Collins.

"The amount of work it would cause my staff to to go back and collect the money paid to MLAs, it just doesn't make any sense."

Cancelling MLA pay raises in 2013, 2014 and 2015 was not an issue because New Brunswick's economy did not grow at all during the period used to calculate increases for those years.