TORONTO, ON: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on the City of Toronto to freeze salaries in light of documents showing 99 per cent of municipal bureaucrats got pay raises in 2020 during pandemic.

“While tens of thousands of Torontonians lost their jobs or took pay cuts due to the pandemic, the City of Toronto was busy giving its employees $173 million worth of pay raises,” said Jay Goldberg, the CTF’s Interim Ontario Director. “Over 99 per cent municipal employees saw their salaries increase last year. Those pay hikes were paid for by hardworking Toronto taxpayers, many of whom saw their small businesses close, lost their jobs, or had their hours reduced.”

The City of Toronto employs 34,603 people.

Of those employees, 86 per cent are unionized, and all unionized employees received pay raises last year, according to documents obtained by the CTF through a freedom-of-information request. The remaining 14 per cent of the city workforce are non-unionized employees, and a freedom of information request revealed that 4,600 of the 4,704 non-unionized employees received raises as well.

“The fact that less than one per cent of those who work for the City of Toronto did not receive pay increases in 2020 shows how out of touch Toronto City Council and government bureaucrats are with the day-to-day realities facing taxpayers,” said Goldberg. “Taxpayers can’t afford to perpetually cover raises for bureaucrats, especially in the midst of a pandemic.”

Toronto’s unemployment rate remains at 13.1 per cent.