New Westminster councillor calls for salary cap on mayors

A New Westminster city councillor is advocating for a salary cap on local politicians, some of them making more in income than B.C. cabinet ministers.

After conducting some research, he was able to consolidate last year’s information and complete his spreadsheet.

According to Fontaine, many mayors in the region earned over $200,000 in 2024, with four surpassing $300,000.

Those elected politicians include Burnaby Mayor Mike Hurley, Port Coquitlam Mayor Brad West, Delta Mayor George V. Harvie, and Richmond Mayor Malcolm Brodie.

Brodie is at the top of the income ranking, with a total remuneration of $379,974.00, based on Fontaine’s spreadsheet.

Vancouver Mayor Ken Sim’s combined income amounts to $220,078.

Following this revelation about the earnings councillor Daniel Fontaine is urging Premier David Eby to implement salary caps.

“I have been publicly encouraging the B.C. Premier, the B.C. cabinet, as well as Metro Vancouver, to look at implementing these salary caps,” Fontaine says in an interview with 1130 NewsRadio.

He is referencing a report by accounting firm Deloitte recommending a salary cap for Metro Vancouver elected politicians.

A B.C. cabinet minister makes $180,000 annually

In detail, the recommendation says that elected officials in Metro Vancouver should not make more in income than a B.C. cabinet minister, whose salaries are approximately $180,000 annually.

The report, which was issued to the Metro Vancouver Regional District, states that if a cap on income remuneration were imposed, taxpayers in the metro region would save about $1.5 million last year.

“What is interesting is that you do not need provincial legislation to implement the cap,” Fontaine explains.

“It’s something that Metro Vancouver could impose on itself, because it does control how much it pays out to elected officials.”

Fontaine says that he started creating a spreadsheet showing “how much elected officials were making in the Metro Vancouver region”, after he realized that that information was not centrally available.

These compensations include the mayors’ base salaries and additional payments from various regional bodies, such as Metro Vancouver, TransLink, and the South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority.

These additional payments stem from the responsibilities the mayors play in multiple committees of those regional bodies.