Toronto councillors vote in a 24 per cent pay raise for themselves

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Toronto’s city council voted this week in favour of a pay hike for Toronto city council. The motion, which passed by a vote of 15 to 8, will see councillors’ salaries rise to $170,588 from $137,537, effective back to Jan. 1 of this year. It amounts to a 24 per cent raise, or $33,051.

Three councillors were listed as being absent from the vote, including Don Valley East councillor Jon Burnside. The National Post reached out to Burnside but was told he was unavailable for comment.

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Also absent was Jennifer McKelvie, who announced this week that she’ll be running for the federal liberals in Ajax in the April 28 election. She has said that, while she’s on a leave of absence from city council, she will donate her salary to the Toronto and Region Conservation Foundation.

Mayor Olivia Chow, whose salary as mayor won’t be affected by the change (she earns $225,304), was also absent from the vote but came out against the measure this week. “It is too steep,” she told reporters on Tuesday. “These are hard economic times for everyone, and it’s also uncertain times, uncertain because of the Trump tariff.”

The raise, affecting all 25 members of council, is estimated to cost the city just under $1 million this year, with funds coming from the city’s Corporate Non-Program Expenditure Budget.

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Beaches-East York councillor Brad Bradford, who was one of the dissenting votes, told the National Post: “I’ve been focused on fighting for affordability down here at City Hall. Coming on the heels of Mayor Chow’s record-breaking tax increases, I couldn’t support adding more costs on Toronto families.”

The others who voted against the proposal were Alejandra Bravo (Davenport), Vincent Crisanti (Etobicoke North), Paula Fletcher (Toronto-Danforth), Stephen Holyday (Etobicoke Centre), Parthi Kandavel (Scarborough Southwest), Frances Nunziata (York South-Weston) and Gord Perks (Parkdale-High Park).

A salary review submitted to council this week suggested the raise be given “in recognition of the unique demands placed on Toronto City Councillors (e.g., large number of constituents per Councillor, an operating and capital budget larger than some provinces, oversight of service delivery to Canada’s largest city)” and “in consideration of the economic demands facing the City,” among other reasons.

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It also noted that councillors had not seen a pay increase since 2006, at which time the salary had been set at $95,000 for councillors and $160,000 for the mayor. However, those numbers have risen over time due to inflation and cost-of-living increases.

Councillor Shelley Carroll of Don Valley North had proposed an amendment setting a slightly smaller increase to $165,933.43, essentially stripping out the most recent consumer-price-index increase. It would have reduced the overall cost by about $134,000, but was voted down. The National Post has reached out to Carroll for comment about her amendment.

The salary review report noted that Toronto councillors earn less money per constituent than similar cities, and deal with larger operating budgets. For example, Ottawa councillors earn $119,517 but have about 60,000 constituents each, and a city budget of $4.46 billion.

Toronto councillors have an average of 124,000 constituents each, a steep jump since Ontario cut the number of councillors to 25 from 47 back in 2018. The city also has an operating budget of $17.1 billion, almost four times that of Ottawa.

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