Toronto mayor and councillors poised to get 2.1 per cent pay boost
John Tory will take it and says rejecting it would be a hollow act.

TheStar.com
Feb. 6, 2017
Betsy Powell

Mayor John Tory and 44 city councillors are poised to collect a 2.1 per cent pay increase when council finalizes the 2017 operating and capital budgets next week.

The pay increases, retroactive to Jan. 1, will boost the mayor’s salary to $188,544 and councillor pay to $111,955. All salaries are fully taxable.

In 2006, council established a policy that councillors’ and mayor’s salary levels would automatically increase by Toronto’s CPI annually, which was 2.1 per cent in 2016.

Last week, Tory, who asked city departments and agencies to slash their budgets by 2.6 per cent this year, said council remuneration is out of his hands.

“The process by which councillors and the mayor get a salary increase at the rate of inflation was set before my time,” Tory said last week.

Tory added he will accept his boost in pay because rejecting it would be a hollow act.

“I think most people in Toronto know that I could afford not to take the raise, and that I could go through this gesture, which I think would be very political, of donating (it) back,” said Tory, a lawyer and former president and CEO of Rogers Media and Rogers Cable.

“But there may be somebody who will succeed me in office in future years, who can’t afford to do that. And I just think it’s wrong for me to sort of posture and grandstand in this regard.”

Tory added his office is taking a 2.6 per cent budget cut, which has “led to some changes.”