Disclosure: The Seeker currently carries paid advertising for Sarah Good’s and Justin Towndale’s mayoral campaigns. This column is my opinion alone.
Six days before an election, you’d think we’d be talking about housing. Or taxes. Or the tents in Lamoureux Park.
Nope. We’re talking about council’s paycheque. Again.
I’ve seen it on social media more times than I can count: “Don’t forget that Sarah Good and Elaine MacDonald have voted themselves a hefty increase,” they write, conveniently forgetting to mention that others also voted for the increase.
So let’s look at it, seriously, without the pitchforks.
What they actually voted for
In May, council voted 6-5 to raise councillors’ base pay by $4,000 over four years, $1,000 a year starting in 2027. The mayor’s salary goes up $17,000 over the same four years. Right now, a councillor makes $27,827 a year. The mayor makes $71,127. Those phased increases come alongside annual inflation adjustments.
Yes, Good and MacDonald voted for it. So did Claude McIntosh, Syd Gardiner, Carilyne Hébert and Denis Sabourin. Mayor Justin Towndale and Councillors Todd Bennett, Maurice Dupelle, Dean Hollingsworth and Fred Ngoundjo voted against.
We hear THAT all the time, but we don’t hear that the raise doesn’t actually kick in until next term. It goes to whoever wins on October 26.
Could that include Good, who’s running for mayor, and MacDonald, who’s running again for council? Sure. It could just as easily go to whoever beats them.
A drop in the bucket
Fully phased in, the fixed salary increases total $49,000 a year, before inflation adjustments and employer payroll costs. Against a municipal levy of roughly $103 million, that is less than five hundredths of one per cent—roughly $1.50 a year on the average home’s municipal tax bill, using today’s figures.
$1.50 a year. Not a month. A year. A YEAR! So why the outrage?
And as council shrinks from ten councillors to eight this year, tax payers will see a saving or about $55,000 a year at today’s pay. Even in 2030, when the raise is fully in place, eight better-paid councillors cost less in base salary than the ten we have now.
How we compare
Look at Belleville. Councillors there were paid $40,877 in 2025, and the city covers 100 per cent of their health, dental and life insurance premiums. Their mayor made $116,350.
North Bay councillors are on pace for about $33,300 this year. Their mayor, about $84,850.
Cornwall councillors? $27,827. No benefits. Council voted in 2024 to keep it that way.
When the comparison came to council this spring, MacDonald pointed out that Cornwall’s councillors and mayor were the lowest paid in the comparator group. Even Bennett, who voted against the raise, said the mayor’s role is a full-time job that should pay accordingly.
What we’re actually asking of them
This city has almost 700 full-time employees and a $260-million operating budget. It runs paramedic services, long-term care, housing and child care, for us and for the United Counties of SDG. The next council’s nine members will oversee all of that.
Read hundreds of pages of agenda packages. Sit through meetings until eleven at night. Get called a crook on Facebook by people who never opened an agenda. Get stopped at the grocery store about a pothole.
For $27,827 a year. No dental. No drug plan.
So who can afford to do that? Retirees. People whose spouse has benefits. People with a business that runs without them. It’s much less attractive for the single mom, the shift worker or the 30-year-old with a mortgage and two kids in hockey. But wouldn’t we want their voices represented on council too?
Hébert put it best during the debate. Pay may not be the reason someone runs, she said, “but it may be the reason somebody doesn’t.”
“You shouldn’t get into politics for the pay”
I hear this one a lot.
Sure, I agree. But when you are elected, you should be paid your worth.
Nobody should run for council to get rich. And trust me, at these numbers, nobody is. But “it’s public service” has become a handy excuse to pay people as little as we can get away with. Then we act surprised when the same few faces keep showing up on the ballot.
We say we want professionals. We should pay like we mean it.
Two things can be true
In fairness, this isn’t the first raise this term. In 2024, council put money that could have gone to benefits into salaries instead, and tied its pay to staff increases. That took councillors from about $22,000 to where they are today.
If you think that was enough, that’s a reasonable position. Towndale, Hollingsworth and Ngoundjo argued for restraint while the city tightens its belt, and they’re entitled to that view.
But let’s keep the scale honest.
So why are we obsessed? Is it because it’s an easy target? A rant about a councillor’s salary fits in a Facebook post. The explaination of a $107.5-million infrastructure backlog? Not so much…
If you want to judge Good, MacDonald or anyone else on that ballot, judge them on their records. Their votes on housing. On the budget. On the things that actually move your tax bill. And if you don’t like them, vote for someone else. One thing is absolutely certain, they will deserve every penny of that salary, and then some.
You can vote online until 8 p.m. on Monday, October 26. From your couch.
Then, please, let’s focus on what really matters?
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