Premier Brian Pallister should put his money where his mouth is when it comes to wage concessions for public servants.

The premier has put public sector unions on notice that his government is looking for wage concessions to help reduce costs. Pallister has even suggested he may try to open existing collective agreements to cancel planned wage increases.

So, why not apply that same austerity to himself and all 57 MLAs, many of whom received generous raises this year and are likely in line for another salary hike in 2017?

We asked Pallister about that this week. And while he didn’t rule it out, he said he would wait for Manitoba’s independent allowance commissioner Michael Werier to submit his report first. That’s a cop-out.

Like most allowance commissioners we’ve seen in recent years in Manitoba, Werier is sympathetic to MLAs and cabinet ministers when it comes to their salaries and benefits, especially when compared to politicians in other provinces. And he’s not likely to freeze their wages, unless instructed to. He has noted more than once that Manitoba MLAs and cabinet ministers are among the lowest paid in Canada. And it’s been for that reason he’s increased their salaries well above the rate of inflation some years.

But he wasn’t able to do that from 2010-11 to 2013-14. That’s because during that period, then-premier Greg Selinger imposed a wage freeze on all MLAs, which government has the authority to do. Even though the salary, benefits and other decisions by the independent commissioner are supposed to be binding on MLAs, there’s nothing in law preventing government from instructing the commissioner to freeze MLAs’ wages. That’s precisely what Selinger did, while also negotiating a wage freeze — or a wage “pause” as he called it — with civil servants.

In 2010, through regulations, Selinger instructed Werier to not apply any cost-of-living increases to MLAs’ base salary for the years 2010-11 and 2011-12. There was also a 20% rollback of cabinet ministers’ wages, as per the balanced budget legislation, during those two years.

Selinger continued the freeze in 2012-13 and 2013-14 through Bill 39, an amendment to the Legislative Assembly Act.

It wasn’t until 2014 that MLAs saw their first wage increase in five years, although the 20% rollback for ministers and the premier remained. That wasn’t lifted until April 1, 2016 under balanced budget legislation, which exempts the rollback in the first year of a new government. Opposition MLAs have since accused Pallister of giving himself a pay raise this year, which is inaccurate. In reality, the increase in pay for the premier and cabinet ministers came as a result of provisions in the former NDP government’s own balanced budget legislation.

In fact, any MLA who accuses cabinet of taking a pay raise this year is a bit of hypocrite because the base pay for all MLAs went up this year.

The principle here is that politicians shouldn’t set their own remuneration. So the legislative assembly appoints an independent commissioner to set salaries and benefits for them. The commissioner sets a base pay for all MLAs and determines the top-up for cabinet ministers, the premier and other elected officers of the legislative assembly, including the speaker and house leaders.

But government can, at any time, instruct the commissioner to freeze their wages. And Pallister could do that immediately through an order-in-council, like Selinger did. Commissioner Werier will not have his report prepared until sometime early next year. Which means Pallister could instruct him now to freeze their pay.

If Pallister is asking civil servants to take a pay freeze, or to agree to some other concessions, he should be prepared to lead by example and apply those same measures to himself and all MLAs.

What’s good for the goose is good for the gander.