Ontario's mayors make six-figure salaries — but the top earner isn't in Toronto or Ottawa
Here's how much mayors make in 29 Ontario cities. 👀
Ontario's Big City Mayors meet in Burlington, April 2024.
Ever wondered how much money your city's mayor makes? It turns out the paycheques for Ontario's biggest city leaders are all over the map — some are making significantly more than others, and the gap is bigger than you might expect.
Using the most recently available data from the Ontario government's public salary disclosure portal (sometimes referred to as the sunshine list), we took a deep dive into the salaries of all of Ontario's "Big City Mayors" — the mayors of all 29 municipalities in Ontario with at least 100,000 residents — to find out just how much these municipal leaders from across the province are taking home, from base salary to taxable benefits.
If you think mayoral salaries are strictly based on obvious markers like population size, think again. The highest-paid mayor in Ontario isn't the leader of Toronto, Ottawa or any of the province's other top-five biggest cities. In fact, some mayors overseeing much smaller municipalities are earning way more than those leading major urban centres.
Since the data is from 2023 (the latest available from the Ontario sunshine list), it still reflects Bonnie Crombie's earnings as mayor of Mississauga, despite her stepping down in early 2024 to focus on her Ontario Liberal Party leadership. Similarly, because Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow only took office in July 2023, we prorated her earnings for a fair comparison.
It's worth noting that the sunshine list is compiled using salary data reported to the province by each individual municipality, which means the way compensation is disclosed can vary. In addition, employers are only required to disclose salaries of $100,000 or more. This means that if a mayor earns additional income from sitting on a regional council, board or committee, that amount may not be included in their reported salary if it's paid by a different employer and is less than $100,000.
For the purposes of this list, we've used only the figures published on the sunshine list for each mayor, to ensure the fairest possible comparison — but keep in mind that mayors on this list may have additional income besides what's noted here.
The list sheds light on the wide salary gap among Ontario's municipal leaders — while some mayors are taking home well over $300K, others are earning about a third of that. Across the board, the average total compensation among Ontario's big-city mayors comes in at around $174K.
So, who's raking in the most, and who's making the least? The numbers might surprise you.
Thunder Bay Mayor Ken Boshcoff
Boshcoff earned a base salary of $104,694.24 in 2023, with $4,747.88 in taxable benefits. That brings his total compensation to $109,442.12, making him the lowest-paid mayor in Ontario.
Cambridge Mayor Jan Ligget
Ligget's 2023 salary was $110,375.95, with just $854.29 in taxable benefits. That adds up to $111,230.24.
Chatham-Kent Mayor Darrin Canniff
Canniff made $116,747.02 in base salary, with $836.28 in benefits, bringing his total compensation to $117,583.30.
Kitchener Mayor Berry Vrbanovic
Vrbanovic took home a salary of $110,619.04, with $10,188.87 in taxable benefits. That brought his total compensation to $120,807.91.
Waterloo Mayor Dorothy McCabe
McCabe's base salary was $112,474.66, with $8,713.45 in benefits, for a total compensation of $121,188.11.
Brantford Mayor Kevin Davis
Davis earned $120,657.49 in salary and $6,206.84 in benefits, bringing his total compensation to $126,864.33.
Mississauga Mayor Bonnie Crombie
Before stepping down in early 2024 to focus on her role as leader of the Liberal Party of Ontario, Crombie earned $129,438.53 in salary and $981.68 in benefits as mayor of Mississauga. Despite running Ontario's third-largest city, her total compensation in 2023 was well below average at $130,420.21.
Barrie Mayor Alex Nuttall
Nuttall's salary was $129,621.85, with $8,288.88 in benefits, bringing his total compensation to $137,910.73.
St. Catharines Mayor Mat Siscoe
Siscoe earned $125,874.62 in salary and $15,930.56 in taxable benefits in 2023. That makes his total compensation $141,805.18.
Oshawa Mayor Dan Carter
Carter's base salary was $147,926.82, with $484.20 in benefits. That brought his total compensation to $148,411.02.
Pickering Mayor Kevin Ashe
Ashe earned $124,138.77 in salary, but with his eye-watering $25,124.74 in benefits, that still adds up to a solid $149,263.51 — not too shabby for the mayor of the smallest city on the list.
Kingston Mayor Bryan Paterson
Paterson made $150,019.96 in salary and $7,738.92 in benefits, for a total compensation of $157,758.88.
Greater Sudbury Mayor Paul Lefebvre
Lefebvre's 2023 salary was $149,788.50, with $10,709.80 in benefits, bringing his total compensation to $160,498.30.
Guelph Mayor Cam Guthrie
Guthrie earned $155,192.58 in salary and $6,230.15 in benefits. His total compensation was $161,422.73.
London Mayor Josh Morgan
Morgan's salary was $152,323.08, with $12,139.61 in benefits, for a total compensation of $164,462.69.
Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown
Despite being the mayor of one of Ontario's top-five largest cities, Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown's compensation is nowhere near the top five — and in fact, it's below the average for big-city mayors.
Brown earned $149,022.06 in salary and $19,059.24 in benefits, bringing his total compensation to $168,081.30.
Ajax Mayor Shaun Collier
Collier's salary was $156,665.05, with a whopping $31,558.31 in benefits — the largest benefits package any mayor on this list made in 2023. This brings his total compensation to $188,223.36 — just above the average for big-city mayors in the province.
Milton Mayor Gordon Krantz
Krantz earned $180,275.00 in salary, with $8,360.71 in benefits, for a total compensation of $188,635.71.
Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe
Ottawa Mayor Mark Sutcliffe brought in a base salary of $198,702.14, with $644.88 in benefits in 2023. That brings the total compensation for the mayor of Canada's capital and the second-largest city in the province to $199,347.02.
Burlington Mayor Marianne Meed Ward
Despite earning the fourth-highest base salary at $202,712.11 in salary, Meed Ward had one of the smallest benefits packages at $714.00, making her just the tenth-highest-paid mayor overall with a total compensation of $203,426.11.
Clarington Mayor Adrian Foster
Foster's salary was $188,503.93, with $16,171.97 in benefits. That brought his total compensation to $204,675.90.
Richmond Hill Mayor David West
West earned $201,535.88 in salary, with $4,093.33 in benefits, bringing his total compensation to $205,629.21.
Whitby Mayor Elizabeth Roy
Roy's base salary was $189,346.73, but benefits added another $19,740.63, making her total compensation $209,087.36.
Oakville Mayor Rob Burton
Burton made $198,013.70 in salary, with $12,334.76 in benefits, for a total compensation of $210,348.46.
Hamilton Mayor Andrea Horwath
Horwath's salary was $201,592.27, with $13,381.62 in benefits, bringing her total compensation to $214,973.89.
Vaughan Mayor Steven Del Duca
Del Duca pulled in $201,652.32 in salary, with $15,336.96 in benefits, for a total compensation of $216,989.28.
Windsor Mayor Drew Dilkens
Dilkens' salary was $209,649.75, with $9,941.37 in benefits, bringing his total compensation to $219,591.12. The
Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow
Since Olivia Chow only took office just over halfway through the year on July 12, 2023, her total reported earnings as mayor for that year were $123,224 ($102,260 salary + $20,964 benefits).
According to the City of Toronto, the official mayoral salary for 2023 before benefits would have been $216,160.13, so assuming her benefits were prorated at the same rate, the annual equivalent of Chow's total compensation would amount to roughly $260,474.44.
This makes Chow just the second-highest-paid mayor in the province, despite Toronto being the province's capital and largest city.
Markham Mayor Frank Scarpitti
Markham Mayor Frank Scarpitti was the highest-paid mayor in Ontario in 2023, earning $278,473.42 in salary and $23,945.96 in benefits.
That brings the total compensation for the mayor of Ontario's 7th-largest city to a whopping $302,419.38 — nearly three times the salary of Thunder Bay Mayor Ken Boshcoff.
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