Fort McMurray council accepts pay hike, but not everyone is taking the cash
Wallis Snowdon | CBC News | Posted: June 22, 2016 5:23 PM | Last Updated: June 22, 2016
Councillors in the wildfire-ravaged community of Fort McMurray voted to give themselves a dramatic pay hike Tuesday, but not everyone is taking the cash.
In a split vote, councillors with the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo doubled salaries for part-time councillors and quintupled the salaries of councillors who will now work full-time.
Previously, Mayor Melissa Blake was the only full-time member of council. However, three councillors will now work full-time now that they have been appointed to the Wood Buffalo Recovery Committee.
Blake and councillors assigned to the committee will earn $150,000 each year. Salaries for the remaining seven part-time councillors was bumped from $35,000 to $75,000.
Before the pay hike, Blake earned roughly $123,000.
The pay hikes were included in the Wood Buffalo Recovery Committee bylaw, which allows for the creation of a recovery task force which will help steer restoration efforts in areas decimated by the fire.
- Wildfire suspends work on 40% of capital projects in Fort McMurray region
- 2 Fort McMurray firefighters say evacuation came too late, put lives at risk
The vote was far from unanimous.
An amendment from Coun. Tyran Ault to remove any mention of compensation from the bylaw was narrowly defeated 6-5.
The final vote was also split. The unamended resolution was opposed by Blake, Ault and councillors Jane Stroud and Phil Meagher.
A third-party review of council salaries was already in the works before the fire, and Ault wished council waited for that first.
"It was just something I wasn't comfortable with approving," Ault said.
"The optics of it are challenging, in terms of discussing pay, when people are out of work. And when you discuss your pay as a politician, it's never easy and that's why I figured the independent third body would have been the best route to go."
Ault has since decided not to accept the increased pay.
"It would have been hypocritical for me to accept a pay hike that I voted against."
Stroud, who is also rejecting the salary increase, says the changes have infuriated many of her constituents.
"They're concerned," she said. "We have residents that are in a very stressful situation at the present time with burned-out homes, and I think we should be putting our time more to working with those residents."
The raise is intended to compensate council for the increased workload associated with the recovery effort but Stroud said it's unfair for council to accept a raise when residents are grappling with the disaster.
"These disasters will come up, it's part of the work load and I think we need to accept it," Stroud said.
In a post to her Twitter account on Wednesday night, Blake confirmed she was also rejecting the increased salary.
An annual $150,000 salary means councillors will earn a base salary higher than any other municipal councillor in Canada's major cities — including Montreal, Calgary, Vancouver and Toronto.
The pay scheme will be in place until Dec.31, 2017.