Toronto, ON. – The Ontario government wants to freeze wages at $418,000 on the annual pay of senior executives at hospitals, universities and across the broader public sector.

The proposed legislation unveiled on Thursday would cap the pay of top executives -who earn two times the salary of Premier Dalton McGuinty. The legislation would apply to future executives.

The proposed legislation is a move to reduce the province’s deficit.

Finance Minister Dwight Duncan said he cannot expect public-sector front-line workers to take a wage freeze without senior executives taking the same.  

“We want to protect public services, protect public jobs,” he said.

The Liberals will also freeze the pay for about 8,800 managers in the Ontario civil service. Duncan said this will save about $12 million per year.

“Dollar wise, these are modest,” he said. “Symbolically, they are important.”

The government cannot say how many people in the broader public sector will be affected by the legislation or how much the cash-strapped province will save by freezing their pay. But it did reveal that the number will be less than 350,000.

The government has warned that it will legislate a two-year wage freeze for the province’s broader public sector, which would affect about 1.3 million workers, if it cannot negotiate zero-increase deals.

The finance minister has also recently complained about contracts negotiated at universities and by firefighters that included salary increases.

The Liberals already imposed a contract on public school teachers that allows younger teachers to receive raises but freezes salaries for most.