Pay cuts eased for Manitoba cabinet ministers

The Manitoba government is once again changing its balanced budget law to ease the pay cuts cabinet ministers face for running deficits.

Under provincial law, the top-up salary that cabinet ministers receive is normally cut by 20 per cent for a first deficit and 40 per cent for every consecutive deficit thereafter.

In 2010, theNDP government announced it would start running deficits until 2015, and capped the pay cuts at 20 per cent cut until then.

This week,Premier Greg Selinger announced the deficits will continue until 2017.

He now says the cap on pay cuts willalso be extended until 2017.

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation said it's disappointed.

Spoksman Colin Craig says the pay cut is there for a reason, and the premier is acting as if he is a driver who can rip up his own speeding tickets.

For most cabinet ministers, the change means their pay is cut by $7,300 instead of $14,000.

For the premier, the pay cut amounts to $11,000 instead of $22,000.