FREDERICTON - New Brunswick should introduce highway tolls, public auto insurance and new generic drug pricing in an effort to prop up sagging government revenue, one of the province's unions said Thursday.

The New Brunswick Union of Public and Private Employees, which represents 6,500 provincial civil servants, offered suggestions at a news conference that it says could generate $450 million a year in revenue.

"What we have in this province is not a spending problem altogether -- we have a revenue problem," said Tom Mann, the union's executive director.

"There are means of gaining revenue for our province in larger sums than the $5 million and $10 million (the government) has announced in some of their manoeuvres thus far."

The union says the province should bring in highway tolls for trucks and a public auto insurance system. Mann pointed to a study commissioned by the provincial government in 2007 that found New Brunswickers paid $518 million more in insurance premiums than they got back in claims between 2003 to 2007.

Mann also said new regulations on generic drug pricing should be implemented. He said New Brunswickers are paying up to 70 per cent of the brand name cost for their generic drugs.

He said the province should emulate Ontario's program, where generic drugs cannot cost a consumer more than 40 per cent of the brand name cost.

"It would reap a savings for the province of New Brunswick of $26 million, while New Brunswickers and the cost of their health and drug plans ... would save an additional $98 million," he said.

The New Brunswick government faces a projected $471-million deficit this year and a debt expected to exceed $10 billion. Finance Minister Blaine Higgs has been seeking suggestions as he prepares the 2012-2013 provincial budget that he'll release next month.

Brendan Langille, a spokesman for the Department of Finance, said Higgs was in meetings Thursday and not available to comment.

"We are happy the union has been participating in the pre-budget process," Langille said.

Mann also rejected talk of privatizing NB Liquor, saying the union's research shows that privatizing liquor stores would turn well-paying jobs into part-time, minimum-wage jobs and societal costs would increase as a result.

The union is also calling for changes in how pension money is invested.

Mann said New Brunswick pensions sink more than $8.5 billion each year into stocks and bonds, but less than two per cent of that is invested in the province.

"We automatically invest large sums of money in what have been considered blue-chip agencies," he said. "And when you look closely you see New Brunswick bonds are equally safe and secure and yield the same amount of money as Government of Ontario bonds."

Mann said his union will set an example by swapping $750,000 it has invested in Ontario government bonds into New Brunswick government bonds that pay the same rate of return.

"If we don't invest in the future of this province, who will?"