It’s the worst kept secret – people who are employed by the government tend to make more money, and enjoy better benefits, than those who do similar jobs outside of government.

It doesn’t matter if we’re talking about salaries, pension benefits, sick leave or job security, study after study shows government employees – on average – are doing much, much better.

So the big question is – will someone ever tackle the problem and justifiably save taxpayers billions of dollars? Or will politicians just keep raising your taxes?

Here in Alberta, Premier Rachel Notley has refused to take ballooning labour costs. Her party has always had a cozy relationship with powerful government employee unions so the situation isn’t too surprising.

While she claims to have frozen pay for teachers, nurses and other government employees, data obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation shows that thousands of those employees are still receiving pay increases because of the way the government negotiated the so-called “freezes.”

Yes, our government is barrelling towards $96 billion in debt and Premier Notley is still agreeing to pay increases for employees. Given our province’s economic woes, a poorer managerial approach is hard to imagine.

There is hope, however, that Notley’s chief competitor, Opposition leader Jason Kenney, might tackle this problem if he is elected premier next year.

For starters, unlike some conservatives, Kenney will often proudly trumpet the accomplishments of former Alberta Premier Ralph Klein.

While Klein’s debt repayment accomplishment in 2004 was perhaps his most epic and unique accomplishment in Canadian politics, he holds another important distinction.

Klein is also the only premier in the last 30 years of Canadian politics to actually require government employees to take a significant pay reduction. Back in the 1990s, while Klein was trying to get the province’s debt under control, he negotiated a 5 per cent pay reduction for government employees – one they agreed to without a strike.

That’s the type of leadership Alberta needs right now – someone who isn’t afraid to make tough choices and expect government employees to do their share.

We’ll need some tough choices to be made if we’re ever going to get our province’s growing debt problem under control.

And to be clear, making tough choices doesn’t mean health care and education will fall apart – as the government likes to claim. Next door in British Columbia, they’re providing health care, education and other government services for a fraction of the cost.

If the Alberta government merely reduced its per capita spending levels down to what the B.C. government spends per person, we wouldn’t have a deficit right now.

At $27 billion, salaries and benefits make up roughly half of the provincial budget. Pruning this area of spending could be done through a number of different means.

For example, the government could reduce salaries across the board – just like Klein did. Alternatively, the government could reduce salaries for current employees by a set amount, but require an even larger reduction for future employees. Thus, over time, the pay gap could be reduced immensely.

The government could also scale back the number of sick days it offers to government employees and put new government employees in a less costly type of pension plan.

Would Kenney pursue such ideas? Try asking him. Perhaps remind him that this is the type of leadership we saw from Ralph.

This column was published in the October edition of Business in Calgary/Business in Edmonton magazines