On almost every metric, it's hard to find any council in Canada proposing to pay itself as much

Victoria city councillors are currently asking taxpayers to give them a 55 per cent pay raise. Among the questions on a pre-budget survey posted to the City of Victoria’s website is one asking whether councillors should pay themselves an extra $25,700 per year, for a total annual base salary of $70,100.

City councillors making more than $70,000 may not be all that strange in Toronto, Calgary or Vancouver, but those cities (and the budgets they’re entrusted with handling) are also exponentially larger than Victoria’s.

The Capital did the math on what councillors are earning in similar sized jurisdictions all across the country and the Cascadia region. Our research discovered that not only would a 55 per cent raise be wildly out of step with comparable cities, but that Victoria councilors are already collecting some of Canada’s highest wages for their pay grade.

Councillor pay for Canadian cities of similar size to Victoria Annual base rate salaries (not including benefits or expense allowances) for city councilors in Canadian cities of between 65,000 and 105,00 residents. City population in brackets.

Above is a chart tracking councillor salaries in 17 other cities of similar size to Victoria. In all of them – even in famously high-wage Alberta – salaries don’t crack $60,000. To find councillors earning anywhere near $70,000, one has to go to cities that are much larger.

Last year, for instance, Saskatoon debated bumping councillor pay to $70,000. However, councillors oversee a population of 273,000 – more than three times that of Victoria. Saskatoon’s annual operating budget, meanwhile, is nearly double that of Victoria’s $260 million. Councillors in Richmond earn $67,612 per year, but they’ve got 216,000 people to Victoria’s 92,000.

In most mid-range cities, it’s typical that councillors will be among the lowest compensated on the payroll. In London, Ont. (population 404,699) councillors currently earn $52,368 per year. That’s roughly on par with what London is paying the employee who walks around collecting change from parking meters.

In justifying its proposed $25,000 pay hike, Victoria city council noted that it would be “equivalent to the median income of a City employee.”

The question on a City of Victoria budget survey asking the public's opinion on a $25,700 pay raise for city councillors

However, one of the main reasons for low Canadian council salaries is that most cities of Victoria’s size are run by part-time councils. Although mayor is usually a full-time job, council positions are intended to be held by people with day jobs.

That’s still the case in St. John’s, Newfoundland and Labrador. A fellow provincial capital city with a similar sized population and budget to Victoria’s, it’s run by part-timers pulling in $45,526.

Serving on Victoria’s city council is still technically supposed to be a part time job, although the current council has vastly expanded the body’s workload and purview. “The demands on council members’ time is certainly increasing [to] anywhere from 40 to 60 hours a week,” Councillor Ben Isitt told the Times Colonist last week.