Councillors will vote Wednesday on whether to raise their salaries for the first time since 2006, which a staff report says is justified based on a review of councillor compensation in similar municipalities. But Mayor Olivia Chow says it isn’t the time to increase pay given current economic uncertainty.
Mayor Olivia Chow, pictured here in during a 2023 council session at city hall in Toronto, says a staff-recommended pay increase for councillors is too high given current economic uncertainties. 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.
"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." 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.
Councillors in Markham — which has 353,000 residents compared to about 3.1 million in Toronto — had the highest compensation per constituent , 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.
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