VANCOUVER — Prime Minister Stephen Harper is defending pay raises for political staffers at a time of budget belt-tightening.

The prime minister was asked Saturday about bonuses for ministerial staffers which, in one case, drove up an employee's annual salary by $35,000 -- to $190,000.

The Tories have also approved new rules that would allow pay raises for employees, in addition to 50 per cent more separation pay on top of severance packages.

Those changes come into effect as Harper's Conservatives plan to cut $4 billion a year from the federal budget.

Harper defended the move at a news conference; he noted that the new Treasury Board guidelines will simply tie political staffers' pay to salaries in the civil service, which are in line for an increase.

"The pay raises we're talking about are pay raises across the board," Harper said.

"They're not for political staffers. These are government employee pay raises and our political staffers are simply tied to those."

He noted that that, despite individual raises, the overall budgets for ministers' offices will be cut 11 per cent.

A document obtained by The Canadian Press, however, explains that some of the savings being touted will actually be achieved through changes in accounting.

The cost of international travel is now being transferred from the budgets of ministerial offices to departments within the Government of Canada -- allowing ministerial offices to declare a smaller budget.

Harper saluted his outgoing Treasury Board Minister Stockwell Day, who is retiring, for helping control ministerial budgets.

"There may be some individual increases for people but the budgets of ministers' offices are being cut by 11 per cent -- that's what the Conservative government is doing," he said.

"That's the kind of thing Canadians expect us to do."

Harper was in British Columbia promoting his platform promises on crime, which would force sexual attackers to pay more into a victims' fund and would punish inmates who fail drug tests.