Proposed pay raise for Toronto councillors 'too steep,' says mayor ahead of vote

As Toronto councillors prepare to vote Wednesday on whether to give themselves a staff-recommended pay raise of nearly 25 per cent, the city's mayor says the proposed increase is too high in light of tariffs and economic uncertainty.

The recommended raise, which would be the first pay increase for councillors since 2006 outside adjustments for inflation, comes from a staff report from the city's chief people officer Mary Madigan-Lee. Madigan-Lee's report recommends increasing the current base salary from $137,537.40 to $170,588.60, a roughly $33,000 bump that would cost the city around $950,000 in salaries and benefits this year.

Salaries should also continue to be increased by the rate of inflation each year, the report recommends.

Mayor Olivia Chow, whose salary won't be affected by Wednesday's council vote, says she's not in favour of an increase.

"It is too steep," she told reporters Tuesday. "These are hard economic times for everyone, and it's also uncertain times, uncertain because of the Trump tariff."

40% of councillors in similar cities earn more, report finds

But the staff report says the proposed increase is justified based on "the unique demands placed on city councillors," noting that Toronto councillors oversee Canada's largest municipal budget, including the country's largest shelter and transit systems, and a "substantial" housing portfolio.

Despite that, Toronto councillors currently earn less than roughly 40 per cent of their colleagues in other municipalities reviewed for the report.

The proposed increase would bring Toronto council pay into the 75th percentile of elected officials in comparable municipalities, the report says. In other words, Toronto councillors would be paid more than three-quarters of municipal representatives in similar cities.

If the recommendations are approved, city staff would also report at the start of each council term on measures needed to keep Toronto council pay at the 75th percentile.

Report compared 9 cities

The report compared councillor pay in Toronto to that in nine comparable Canadian municipalities, chosen based on size, operating budget, compensation, constituency size and additional duties: Brampton, Hamilton, Markham, Mississauga, Vaughan, Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa and Winnipeg.

Toronto councillors have the lowest compensation per constituent ($1.08) in that group, the report found. Toronto is also the only one of those municipalities that does not pay additional compensation for appointments to boards of service agencies.

Councillors in Markham — which has 353,000 residents compared to about 3.1 million in Toronto — had the highest compensation per constituent ($5.24), the report found, with annual salaries of about $161,000. Mississauga councillors, who represent just under 800,000 people, have the highest base salaries of the review group, earning about $173,000 in 2024.

Of the Ontario municipalities reviewed for the report, only councillors in Ottawa had a lower base salary than those in Toronto.

Pay raise 'overdue,' says councillor

Coun. Jamaal Myers says he's in favour of a raise.

"The facts speak for themselves. City councillors in Toronto are underpaid when you compare them to almost any other municipality in the GTA," he told reporters Tuesday. "The pay increase is overdue."

Coun. Anthony Perruzza, who was speaking alongside Myers and Chow at a news conference Tuesday, said he's yet to read the report, but he noted his workload has increased considerably since he was first elected to council in 2006.

That's largely because the number of councillors representing the growing city was cut almost in half by Premier Doug Ford's government in 2018, he said. Since then, Perruzza said his responsibilities have been "intensely magnified."

"So, what is fair for that?" he said. "That's something that I would be very keenly interested in taking a look at."

Perruzza also responded to Chow's comments that the timing was wrong for councillors to approve a pay increase, saying, "There's never a good time when you are asked to decide on remuneration for yourself."

The staff report found the reduction of wards from 44 to 25 in 2018 expanded the constituency size, number of board appointments and responsibilities of each councillor. 

The report's recommendations were based on a review conducted by the city's people and equity division with assistance from third-party consultant Korn Ferry.

The report's recommendations will be debated before a council vote Wednesday.