A Nova Scotia independent tribunal’s recommendations for increases to provincial and family court judges’ pay is being modified by the provincial government.
READ MORE: Judges in Nova Scotia get 3.8% salary increase
The Provincial Judges’ Salaries and Benefits Tribunal recommendations included a pay hike that would see judges’ salaries increase by about 9.5 per cent over three years, with a 5.4 per cent increase in the first year. This amounts to, according to the tribunal’s decision, a salary of $249,021 in the first year.
But Finance Minister Randy Delorey said the government does not agree with the proposed increase and said the government has instead imposed no salary increase for judges in the first two years, followed by a one per cent increase in 2019-20.
“The salary increases recommended by the tribunal do not fit our economic situation and taxpayers’ ability to pay,” Delorey said in a release. “Instead, we have adopted a fair salary increase for judges that stays within the fiscal plan.”
Judges currently make $236,376 a year plus benefits according to a government release. In the past three years judges’ salaries increased by 5.9 per cent – 3.8 per cent in the first year and by an amount equal to the consumer price index for the final two years.
In tribunal documents, its members said the first year’s proposed salary was determined by using New Brunswick judges’ current base salary rate, what they called “our best comparator … given various similarities and differences among those across the country” and added “an amount equal to 0.9 per cent” representing the GDP growth forecast for Nova Scotia.
According to the release, the wage increase by the province is the same as what is seen by Crown attorneys and doctors, and what’s being proposed for public sector workers.
He added the modified increase is “sufficient” to bring in candidates for judicial appointments and “respects the independence and critical role of the judiciary.”