City councillors could give themselves eye-popping 24% pay raise​on March 26, 2025 at 12:22 am

Stephen Holyday doesn’t mind if you think he doesn’t deserve a raise. He’s going to do whatever he can to make sure he doesn’t get one.

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Toronto city council will consider a report this week that suggests hiking councillors’ salaries by roughly 24%, to more than $170,500. Holyday, the councillor for Etobicoke Centre, says he’ll vote against it.

The optics are awful, he said, “following two years of large tax increases” for Toronto’s citizens, and with the city “on the cusp of economic uncertainty.”

“I hope that council votes this down,” Holyday added, “but even the debate is something that will erode confidence of many electors in the city that are watching.”

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The report was done by city hall’s HR department with the help of a consulting firm. It says Toronto city council’s $137,537 salaries don’t stack up especially well against other large Canadian municipalities — particularly not neighbouring Peel and York regions, which pay councillors well over $150,000.

Holyday doesn’t buy that.

“Everybody understands what the salary is when they put their name onto the nomination paper, so I don’t accept that argument,” he said.

“There’s nothing wrong with the system that we have now, and it’s been very fair to everybody at council — and it does allow for a modest increase to reflect inflation, which I think most workers can appreciate.”

The report also says the last significant change to pay for councillors was in 2006, with only cost-of-living increases since. While true, salaries in 2006 were just over $87,000, and have risen with inflation in all but three years — two of them during the pandemic.

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Since the COVID freeze, councillor salaries have gone up by 2.85% in 2022, 6.51% in 2023 and 4.23% in 2024. The suggested 24% raise would come on top of a 2.81% inflation adjustment for this year, and be retroactive to Jan. 1.

“The duties of Toronto’s city councillors encompass the oversight of Canada’s largest municipal budget, which includes a substantial housing portfolio and the largest shelter system, the largest public transit system in Canada, the full suite of municipal services to Canada’s largest city while also being responsible for serving large numbers of constituents per councillor,” the report says.

The 24% hike would not apply to Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, who earns significantly more than a ward councillor. The mayor’s salary last year was $225,304.04.

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Chow reportedly told a Tuesday press conference the proposed pay hike is too “steep.” Holyday said the report focuses only on salary, ignoring councillors’ “excellent” benefits such as a pension and severance pay.

“There is no good time, especially now, to consider this report,” Holyday said, but an “important consideration” missing in this process, he said, is MPP pay, which according to news reports could soon go up after a long salary freeze at Queen’s Park.

Holyday suggested that when the next campaign comes, councillors could be held “accountable for how they vote on this.”

Council requested the report in November. By coincidence, councillors’ staff are also seeking more money, and want to unionize — but that effort has been stalled by city hall, which is arguing it is not truly the employer of those workers.

The 24% hike for councillors works out to about $33,000 — “more than what some council staff make in an entire year,” AMAPCEO president Dave Bulmer said in a statement. Council staffers have filed to be represented by AMAPCEO.

The union says it will meet with city hall representatives on April 2.

jholmes@postmedia.com 

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