SAINT JOHN, N.B.- The mayor says the city can’t have a pension fund that dies from a thousand cuts.

Mel Norton’s comments come after a court hearing in Saint John where lawyers for John Ferguson argued the former councillor’s 2.5 million dollars in legal costs should be covered by the pension board which launched an unsuccessful defamation suit.

Norton says that would be another blow to the already beleaguered fund. “We know already that the legal fees that have gone into that lawsuit from the pension board side have come from that fund”, says Norton. “That’s money that otherwise should have stayed invested for the retirees and the current employees. This is another hit to that”.

A decision by Justice William Grant could come in the next few days.