Did you know that on November 4, 2025, a majority of London City Council voted, 9 to 6, to pay councillors more than what seventy percent of full-time working Londoners earn?
The raise takes effect at the start of the next council term on November 15, 2026. It pushes the base councillor salary from about $67,000 to about $94,000. That is a one-time step-up of close to forty percent, locked in by a Council Resourcing Review Task Force report and a single vote of council.
At about $94,000, the new councillor base salary will sit above what 70% of full-time working Londoners, and most teachers and nurses, take home.
Here is who voted yes, who voted no, what the rules say about how council pay gets set, and the gap that none of them closed.
The vote
Resolution 2025-C06 came up at Council on November 4, 2025. It implemented the recommendations of the Council Resourcing Review Task Force, whose Final Report was dated October 3, 2025. The motion was moved by Councillor Shawn Lewis of Ward 2. It was voted on part by part. Part (a), the part that resets councillor base pay to the seventieth percentile of full-time employment income for Londoners as reported in the 2021 Census, passed 9 to 6.
The nine who voted yes on the pay raise:
- Mayor Josh Morgan
- Hadleigh McAlister, Ward 1
- Shawn Lewis, Ward 2
- Peter Cuddy, Ward 3
- Jerry Pribil, Ward 5
- Steve Lehman, Ward 8
- Skylar Franke, Ward 11
- Steve Hillier, Ward 12
- Elizabeth Peloza, Ward 14 (Budget Chair)
The six who voted no:
- Susan Stevenson, Ward 4
- Sam Trosow, Ward 6
- Corrine Rahman, Ward 7
- Anna Hopkins, Ward 9
- Paul Van Meerbergen, Ward 10
- David Ferreira, Ward 13
Before the part-by-part voting, Councillors Skylar Franke and Anna Hopkins co-sponsored a referral motion that would have sent the Task Force report back to staff with instructions to come back with scenarios pegged to the sixtieth and sixty-fifth percentiles instead of the seventieth. Council had a chance to moderate the package. It voted the referral down 6 to 9.
The vote, the names, and the failed referral motion are in the official Council Minutes for the November 4, 2025 meeting (eSCRIBE DocumentId 120361). The verbatim resolution text is also reproduced in Appendix B of the 2026 Council Guide.
How council pay works today
London’s elected officials are paid under City Policy CPOL.-70(b)-220, the Remuneration for Elected Officials and Appointed Citizen Members Policy. Section 4.2 of that policy adjusts pay on January 1 each year by the average annual variation in Londoners’ median full-time employment income, drawn from published Statistics Canada census data over the most recent census period.
The November 4 vote did not change that annual indexing formula. It added a new layer underneath it: a one-time reset of the base pay, before the indexing runs.
The new base pay is set at the seventieth percentile of full-time employment income for Londoners. The seventieth percentile means the income level at which seventy percent of full-time London workers earn less, and thirty percent earn more. This is council telling you to your face that they deserve to earn more than what 70% of the people who work full-time in this city earn.
The same package also locked in a recurring re-peg of the base against future Statistics Canada census data, so the seventieth-percentile target updates automatically every five years.
The numbers, in plain dollars:
- 2025 base councillor pay: about $67,420.
- 2026 effective base pay, at the start of the next council term on November 15, 2026: about $94,222.
- The difference: $26,802, or 39.75 percent.
That is the council pay raise nine of fifteen voted for. Different outlets reported different rounded versions of the percentage. CTV reported 35 percent. CBC reported 35 percent. Western Gazette reported 39 percent. The City’s own math, applied to the City’s own benchmark, produces 39.75 percent.
The asymmetry
Council pay tracks median income from census data. The November 4 vote reset the base and locked in a recurring re-peg. That is how a councillor’s pay changes. Even if council raises property taxes year after year and makes life more expensive or difficult for the people who pay it, their pay continues on its own track.
This is not an oversight. It is how the system is built. London is in the same position most cities are in: council controls both the levy and its own pay benchmark. No rule connects performance on one to compensation on the other.
I am tired of accepting that.
I, and every other London taxpayer, have watched our property tax bills jump 8.7 percent, then 7.3 percent, then 3.4 percent, while average incomes have not kept pace. The bills land month after month. Last November, nine of fifteen voted to raise their own pay by close to forty percent.
I find this indefensible. Elected officials deserve fair compensation. And it is only fair that their pay moves with the consequences of their own decisions on the tax burden they place on us. London has the first half. It does not have the second.
The cost of every levy increase lands on us. The pay raise lands on them.
When the levy goes up, it burns taxpayers. Council raising their own pay at the same time rubs salt in the wound.
Most cities accept this. London does not have to.
The fix
The Pay Accountable to City Taxpayers Bylaw closes that gap.
If council raises your taxes by 5 percent, council pay drops 5 percent. Permanently. Even after they reset the base in 2028, the pay cut still applies on top.
It is a single new section, added to CPOL.-70(b)-220, that creates a running tally of every levy increase council imposes. Each levy increase grows the tally. Each tax cut shrinks it. The tally is then applied as a permanent percentage cut to council pay, on top of every other calculation, including the 2028 base reset council voted in on November 4. Cutting the levy back is the only way to erode it. The bylaw never generates a pay raise on its own.
The bylaw is mechanical. Council does not get to vote on whether the pay cut applies in a given year. Once the annual rating by-law passes, the City Treasurer applies the update automatically.
The bylaw is being drafted in public at ward9.online/bylaw/. Every section, every parameter, every suggested change, accepted or rejected, is on the public record. The audit trail is the accountability.
PACT does not touch base pay. It does not touch the seventieth-percentile benchmark council voted for on November 4. It does not touch council’s authority to set the levy. It adds a separate ledger that applies a permanent pay cut on top of every other pay calculation. The result is that the cost of every levy increase is shared, for the first time, by the people who voted to impose it.
What you can do
Read the bylaw at ward9.online/bylaw/. Suggest changes if you see room to improve it. Every accepted change carries the audit trail of the suggestion.
If you support the bylaw, count yourself in. Click “Show support” at the top of the bylaw page. The total is public.
Then visit ward9.online/pledge/. Every registered 2026 candidate for council and mayor is on a single page. If your candidate has not taken a public position on the bylaw, contact them and ask them to. Their answer lands on the tracking page with everyone else’s.
For candidates, the pledge form is on the same page. Responses land on the tracking page, verified by a code sent to the registered campaign email.
The Council Resourcing Review Task Force completed its Final Report on October 3, 2025. Council adopted the recommendations on November 4. None of that involved you as a London voter.
The next decision does.
They voted to take more from you and give more to themselves. That can end with PACT. And it is your choice whether it also ends their political careers.
Sources
Primary sources (City of London):
- November 4, 2025 Council Minutes (eSCRIBE DocumentId 120361). Verbatim per-vote tallies for every part of Resolution 2025-C06, the failed referral motion, and all procedural votes.
- 2026 Council Guide, Appendix B. Verbatim resolution text for Resolution 2025-C06, including the Clerk’s footnotes on which parts passed and which failed.
- City Policy CPOL.-70(b)-220 — Remuneration for Elected Officials and Appointed Citizen Members Policy. The existing pay-setting policy, including section 4.2 (annual adjustment formula).
- Council Resourcing Review Task Force Agenda, September 19, 2025 (eSCRIBE DocumentId 118803). Statistics Canada percentile data and Task Force methodology.
- City of London 2024 to 2027 Multi-Year Budget. Budget document containing the 8.7 percent levy increase for 2024.
News reporting:
- CTV London — Council majority pushes through 35 per cent pay hike next term
- CBC News — London council passes 35 per cent pay raise
- Western Gazette — Why London city councillors will receive 39 per cent pay raise next term
- CUPE Local 101 — London councillors vote for 35% pay raise. First public-facing per-vote list.
- CBC London — London city council finalizes 2025 budget, approving 7.3 per cent tax increase
- CTV London — Mayor prepared to defend recent property tax increases after approving 3.4% in 2026
The bylaw itself:
- Pay Accountable to City Taxpayers (PACT) Bylaw, drafted in public. Full text, audit trail of every change, and the “Suggest a change” mechanism on every section.
- PACT pledge tracker. Every registered 2026 candidate, on the record.
Matt Millar is a Ward 9 farmer, technology professional, and candidate for Ward 9 Councillor in the 2026 London municipal election. The Pay Accountable to City Taxpayers Bylaw is being drafted publicly at ward9.online/bylaw/. Pledges are recorded at ward9.online/pledge/.