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Cue the bagpipes! In a stellar demonstration of leadership, today’s Saskatchewan MLAs have just given themselves a 3.5-per-cent raise.

This, of course, comes just a year after MLAs cut their salaries by the same amount in hopes that other public servants would follow suit.

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The bagpipe reference is a long-standing in-joke in the Saskatchewan Press Gallery that has to do with the last time MLAs demonstrated such sacrifice while demanding the public service follow suit.

Back in 2005, Saskatchewan MLAs on the all-party Board of Internal Economy quietly agreed to give themselves not only their scheduled 2.2-per-cent pay increase but also an additional 2.3-per-cent increase they had waived the previous year in a similar, much-vaunted display of leadership.

At the time, the NDP government under premier Lorne Calvert was on a major kick, mandating public sector wage increases of zero, one and one per cent for three years.