The minority Liberal government is looking to rein in public sector executive compensation and generous pension plans in the electricity sector.

The two-prong initiative is to be launched early in the New Year with proposed legislation calling for a cap on executive salaries and bonuses and a one-person task force to review pensions at Hydro One, Ontario Power Generation, the Independent Electricity System Operator and the Electrical Safety Authority.

“We will be moving ahead with (executive compensation) legislation when the house returns in the spring to give the government the authority to set a framework with hard caps for the broader public sector,” Minister of Government Services John Milloy said Monday.

“I suspect we would save millions of dollars,” he told reporters at Queen’s Park.

The legislation, when finally introduced, would require opposition support to pass.

This measure will affect almost 200 senior public servants, who might be described as holding CEO positions or very senior jobs.

In the meantime, Jim Leech, the outgoing head of the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan, to advise Queen’s Park on making electricity sector pension plans more affordable and sustainable.

A spokesperson for Finance Minister Charles Sousa explained many public sector pension are at or near a 50-50 cost sharing but in the electricity sector, employers contribute about three times more than employees.

And ratepayers end up picking up the tab.

Critics accused the government’s sudden interest in executive compensation and generous pension plans after being in power for 10 years of having more to do with the release of Tuesday’s auditor general report, which traditionally lambasts government spending.

“Like we have said in the past, this government needs to appear as if it is doing something,” Tory MPP Vic Fedeli (Nipissing) told reporters.

“This is about (heading off) the auditor’s report tomorrow so when the auditor comes out with a scathing report they can say ‘but we’ve already addressed that.’ ”

Fedeli said the Progressive Conservative Party has suggested time and again the solution.

“What we really need is an across the board wage freeze,” he said, noting that former Liberal finance minister Dwight Duncan said such a move could save billions of dollars.

NDP MPP Catherine Fife (Kitchener-Waterloo) described the government’s announcement as “another promise of accountability, and I think people are running out of patience.”

The government issued a news release earlier stating that more than half of all government spending goes to salaries and benefits.

That same release noted that government has already https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2012/03/30/ontario_budget_poll_suggests_ontarians_welcome_wage_freeze.htmlfrozen salaries for executives at hospitals, universities, colleges, school boards and provincially owned electricity companies. MPPs have had their salaries frozen for five years.

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Milloy said the compensation review will be sector specific, such as colleges, universities, hospitals and so on.

“I stress that we’ve got to take a look not just at the pay but things like severance and the perks that come along with it,” Milloy said.