The New Brunswick government is asking doctors who bill medicare to agree to a two-year freeze on their fees as the province continues to tighten its belt.

Health Minister Michael Murphy told the legislature Tuesday that the department was entering into discussions over a wage freeze with the province's physicians. He said the policy could be retroactive to April 2008, when the last agreement expired.

"We are not asking physicians to do anything more than we have asked cabinet ministers, college instructors, tradesmen, custodians or any other civil servant to do," Murphy told the legislative assembly.

"The agreement for fee-for-service physicians in New Brunswick expired on March 31, 2008. That means that for the past 14 months, these physicians have already been undergoing a wage freeze of sorts. We are hoping that they will go the additional 10 months to March 31, 2010."

Doctors who are not paid under the fee-for-service scheme will have the their wages adjusted to include a two-year wage freeze.

The New Brunswick Medical Society is not commenting on Murphy's statement about the wage freeze. However, the society's board meets on Friday.

Murphy told reporters that he would not rule out legislating a fee freeze if the medical society turns down the proposal at its meeting.

The Liberal government imposed the two-year wage freeze policy for public servants in its March budget, which also forecasted a $740-million deficit in 2009-10.

The province and its fee-for-service physicians hammered out a tentative contract in December but it was never implemented.

Progressive Conservative MLA Margaret-Ann Blaney, the opposition's health critic, said the move would make it harder to recruit new doctors to the province.

Making things worse, Blaney says, is the fact that Murphy announced a tentative deal with the doctors in December, well after the province was hit by the recession.

"The minister and this government declared war this morning on fee-for-service doctors. These doctors have been operating under the premise — and rightfully so, why wouldn't they — that they have a tentative agreement in place," Blaney said.