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Two Calgary councillors are calling on their colleagues to freeze their pay rate for the upcoming year.

Councillors Ward Sutherland and Jeromy Farkas are pitching separate proposals seeking to ensure council members don’t receive an automatic pay increase expected in January.

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Farkas was the first to announce his proposal in a news release early Wednesday morning. An irked-sounding Sutherland tweeted out his own proposal a few hours later, pointing out that he set plans in motion weeks ago to introduce it at the Dec. 17 meeting of council.

Both councillors said Wednesday that elected officials should “lead by example” by showing fiscal restraint as Calgary continues to struggle to emerge from the economic downturn.

“We need to lead (by) example and show the other parts of the city that our expectation is a zero,” Sutherland said Wednesday. “As you know, major (labour) negotiations were due back in January. We don’t have an agreement at this point, we need to lead and show an example.”

Moments earlier, Farkas said something similar to reporters gathered at city hall.

“It’s my hope that council by taking a pay freeze will send a strong message not just to the public, but also city administration and staff that we are leading by example,” he said.

“We are not asking you to do anything that we ourselves are not willing to do.”