ѻý city councillor Ron Cannan made $3,000 less than most of his colleagues last year because of his decision to reject a wage increase.
Cannanѻý remuneration in 2024 was $44,735, newly-released city financial records show.
Other councillors’ salaries ranged between $45,000 and $49,000, with most earning $47,973.
Mayor Tom Dyas’ salary was $142,363, and he reported expenses of $15,609. The councillor with the highest expense account was Maxine DeHart, at $8,520. Coun. Mohini Singh had the least expenses, at just $169.
Last year, Cannan was one of several city councillors who argued against councillors giving themselves a significant pay boost. He said he knew what the job paid when he ran for office in 2022.
“When I ran for council in 2022, I didn’t run based on the salary,” Cannan said at a meeting in May 2024. Cannan noted the cityѻý long-standing policy had been to link councillor pay to annual changes in the inflation rate, and he saw no reason to change that practice.
But other councillors said they were underpaid compared to elected officials in comparably-sized ѻý cities. “To do this job properly, you can’t be working another full-time job to supplement it,” Coun. Loyal Wooldridge said at the same meeting. “I tried to do it. I had to sell my business to do this full-time.”
Some councillors, such as Gord Lovegrove and Rick Webber, argued against a raise, but then took it anyway.
Cannan, however, was the only councillor who followed through on his stated opposition and actually declined the pay raise.
Under the wage boost agreed by councillors, their pay rose immediately when the decision was made, and again on Jan. 1, 2025, to $58,000 annually. The total increase in pay for councillors was 35 per cent, and the mayorѻý salary went up 15 per cent.
With a council salary last year of $45,129, Wooldridge made slightly less than other councillors last year because he took an unpaid leave of absence to run unsuccessfully for the NDP in last fallѻý provincial election.