N.B. government salary, severance details released

The New Brunswick Department of Finance has published its Blue Book, the annual listing of government salaries.

 It includes the details of hundreds of severance packages it paid out to employees in 2010 — except for one.

The province withheld details of what it paid former NB Power president David Hay, who left the utility under controversial circumstances during the aborted Hydro Québec sale, even though the public was promised full disclosure.

Energy Minister Craig Leonard said details were sealed by the previous government.

"His severance package is subject to a confidentiality agreement that was agreed to by the previous government and so obviously, we have to live by that confidentiality agreement," Leonard said Thursday.

The report shows several Liberals got six-figure buyouts when they left office in October of 2010.

While the president's severance wasn't listed, Darrell Bishop — an NB Power vice president who also left in the middle of the sale and then helped Conservatives draft their energy policy — was paid more than $225,000 in severance.

Yvon LeBlanc attended the big Liberal party meeting at the end of November — where he declined to speak to CBC News about his severance pay.

From 2006 to 2010 LeBlanc was deputy minister of justice in the Graham government. According to government documents, LeBlanc took home $175,000 to $200,000 in salary and another $150,000 to $175,999 in a severance payment after the Liberals lost last year's election.

LeBlanc was one of Liberal partisans appointed to deputy minister jobs by the Liberals who got rich buyouts last year.

Bernard Theriault, Premier Shawn Graham's chief of staff, got a package worth $150,000 to $175,000 on top of the same amount he earned as a salary.

Ex-NB Liquor CEO Dana Clendenning's buyout was in the $25,000 to $50,000 range, though that doesn't include the special pension the outgoing Liberals approved for him.

Under cabinet confidentiality rules, its total value remains secret, even though taxpayers continue to pay for it.