Salary for the position of City Councillor be increased to $59,137 for the 2026-2030 term of office subject to annual inflationary increases equal to the Non-Union…

3:38:51through the next one we're talking about is the council renumeration remuneration review

3:38:59we have one delegation that has prepared for this who has been waiting uh for us alex purve is

3:39:05going to come on up thanks alex for coming the other um delegation that was on our agenda just

3:39:18so you know has withdrawn okay so it's just going to be alex uh hitting us off the top alex thank you

3:39:25you've been here before so you know the five minute rule and with that chime that happens before

3:39:30five minutes with the 32nd warning so go right ahead okay whenever you're ready

3:39:34right this will be uh much shorter than five minutes this time uh

3:39:38wealth storms in the third period right now under down one to nothing uh more importantly

3:39:42about talking about what's happening here today i was here eight weeks ago actually today eight

3:39:48weeks ago when we were first talking about as far as 33 pay raises and everything else

3:39:54and just a couple things i just wanted to refresh and then just numbers i love numbers is i do a lot

3:40:01of auditing at my work and everything else but in 2022 again is on this day 2022 a counselor was

3:40:10making $41,528 today you're making $52,856 that's a lot of money you know it's some would want more

3:40:22but it's it's you know it's good pay now the other thing is that when you voted eight weeks ago as

3:40:29far as on the 33 it didn't pass but still five counselors voted in favor of it now the one thing

3:40:37i want to acknowledge and this is through the mayor is that you voted down two or three different

3:40:43times as far as a raise for yourself so i just wanted to publicly acknowledge that because a lot

3:40:48of people don't that never comes up that for yourself you voted against the pay raise for

3:40:54yourself so that's the first thing uh second thing that i wanted to talk about is that uh

3:41:01uh concerning about uh time audit is that this is the third meeting that we come back talking about

3:41:08what you're going to pay for yourself that seems like a lot of time and i'd love to know what the

3:41:14time audit is for city staff recommendations for them to come back with something else and

3:41:19everything else it's been an awful lot of time to make a very simple decision on what this should be

3:41:26it started off 33 thankfully that didn't pass and then it's gone two or three different ways

3:41:32and now we're here today to hopefully to be able to make a final decision on this now the one thing

3:41:37i would like to say as far as the competitors is that the only thing that really should matter is

3:41:44single tier cities of similar size not compare yourselves to places like London or Hamilton

3:41:51that are half a million people and meanwhile you know we need to compare to cities that are single

3:41:58tier single size when you look at berry is that their counselors are getting paid 45677 dollars

3:42:07right now you look at Kingston their counselors are getting paid 50,020 right now you look at

3:42:15brandford they're getting paid 42,523 right now right now wealth is that you're getting paid

3:42:2452,856 that's not a few not not even close like between brandford and wealth is basically almost

3:42:35$10,000 differential of pay and so i wrote an article back on November the 14th 2025

3:42:46talking about the concerns i had as far as the budget as far as the deferrals that were just in

3:42:51the process of being taken as far as 111 million you know many different things and i warned that

3:43:00you know even with the hockey parents here talking about as far as ice time and everything else is

3:43:05like the city is in a crunch right now and people are upset and you know they're stressed out as well

3:43:12so basically what i would like to suggest and again it's just my recommendation is that you are

3:43:18paid well compared to other cities of similar size you are paid far more than what they are

3:43:27and so what i would suggest and again if i was a counselor you wouldn't like to hear my

3:43:33personal opinion what i would do but i would suggest is that to send a clear message to the

3:43:40contracts that are coming up with the fire department and also with transit that's you're

3:43:45going to be dealing with in a few months times take a pay freeze freeze your pay for one term

3:43:52you're getting paid more than enough money now compared to other cities to you know to vote down

3:44:00to 33 percent great move the mayor for yourself voting down to pay raise for yourself that was a

3:44:06smart move but i would suggest and strongly urge that take a pay freeze give the tax payers a break

3:44:14and then when you do go into go negotiations with both the transit and with the fire departments

3:44:20that you've got a leg to stand on is that you're tightening your belts and you're able to move for

3:44:26it on it that's basically what i have to share thank you okay well thank you all for your presentation

3:44:32is there any follow-up to this delegate there is not thank you hopefully you can meet the

3:44:38storm game and turn it around okay thank you all right and that was i said was it for delegations

3:44:46on this matter i did i did speak to the to the clerk just in advance of the meeting here now

3:44:53there is a motion that was referred from the other council meeting at the end of February that

3:45:00you'll see on the agenda however there is two motions that i know a couple counselors have

3:45:08prepared one from counselor caron one from counselor goller and i think it would be probably

3:45:16wiser and again i i did connect with the clerk on this that we we don't refer we don't put it's

3:45:23going to be cleaner for okay everybody's very a lot more cleaner to not put down the referred

3:45:29motion and just debate the two motions that would be maybe it's only one motion because it might pass

3:45:35for or whatever right so i'd like to go to counselor caron's first to put down and then

3:45:44if that doesn't go anywhere i can go to yours counselor goller okay um hopefully everyone

3:45:49with me so far is everyone okay with that just want to make sure okay so counselor caron has a

3:45:54motion prepared we'll throw it up on the screen and we will ask it to see if there is a

3:46:03seconder to this one counselor caron do you know if you have a secondary yet

3:46:09counselor how's her okay perfect so now that it's on the floor did you want to read it and maybe

3:46:13speak to it sure it's a different substitute an amount that the salary for the position of city

3:46:18counselor be increased to 59 137 for the 2026 30 term of office subject to annual inflationary

3:46:25increases equal to the non-union municipal employee the new me group um so first of all i want to

3:46:31thank staff for going back and getting us some information some additional information it's

3:46:36similar to the information that was provided in our first report but uh broke down a little bit more

3:46:43on the region and the single tier and provided with a little more context so this recommendation

3:46:49comes out of looking at table two which only looks at the counselor base salary on table two on the

3:46:55addendum uh related to your order uh counselor caron could you move your microphone i'm having

3:47:03a very hard time hearing you sure thank you was the audio wasn't working okay my ears

3:47:12yeah thanks so

3:47:16this recommendation comes out of that additional breakdown uh that speaks uh directly to uh to

3:47:22just the counselor base pay not including the regional pay uh i also want to point out that

3:47:29you know one of the things that we didn't compare was you know counselors per resident and some of

3:47:34the comparators it was for for guelph exam for example on average it's 13 500 residents per

3:47:41counselor others uh brantford and gangston it's around 11 000 residents per counselor so um i

3:47:49i went with this item because i know for that we're our third time here talking about council

3:47:55compensation and we didn't take the full recommendation of the citizens committee

3:48:00on you know the full time part time balance uh where the compensation would have been much

3:48:06higher had we taken that recommendation we didn't take the recommendation of our staff in their

3:48:12first report which was 11 000 higher than what's on the table now at the 70 000 mark that would have

3:48:20incorporated some of those um upper tier responsibilities that we also have like land

3:48:26ambulance and social services that other jurisdiction counselors in uh lower tier also have

3:48:34i didn't include that so again this comes from table two on the additional information we received

3:48:40the reason that i am tabling this is also we created the policy we created a policy at the

3:48:4755th percentile we went back out and we amended some of the imperators that we used and this is a

3:48:54policy based recommendation if my colleagues are not interested in this number and i think we need

3:49:02to talk about the policy and i'm not sure that we're prepared to do that because uh nominations

3:49:08the election open on may 1st uh future candidates need to know we need to make this decision tonight

3:49:14future candidates need to know what the compensation is before that happens so going out and doing a

3:49:18full policy review is not appropriate at this time so my recommendation on the floor is policy based

3:49:25on our current policy i'll leave it at that okay thank you very much thank you very much

3:49:32is there any questions to the mover or to staff um at all on this at all don't hear or see any okay

3:49:42so i am going to comment so okay yep going ahead counter go up uh thank you through your worship

3:49:49and and thank you councillor Caron for for bringing this forward and to staff for doing this

3:49:53additional uh body of work um i i i am looking at the report that that came forward uh and on page

3:50:00three of seven we look at the additional municipalities that are the the single tier

3:50:05municipalities of around our size i see there that the the the 55 percentile would be 51,495

3:50:14dollars per councillor pay index to 2026 that would be 53,040 that's about 180 bucks off what

3:50:2212 counselors are getting paid this year so when i look at those municipalities of a similar um size

3:50:30as us that are also single tier i see they're getting paid

3:50:34much the policy the 50 percentile is where we're at so i'm going to respectfully vote against

3:50:42this motion and and if it fails i will bring back the original motion to have no increase

3:50:48for the councillor position okay thank you uh gibson and then claus and and then kate on the screen

3:50:57yeah uh thank you through you mr mayor so again we've had our ideological conversation about

3:51:04this role and and what the remuneration should and could be but i do you know i i wasn't aware

3:51:11i haven't checked in on our most um um operable communities in a long time and the the delegate

3:51:16kind of brought that up but kinkston and barry have always been met um sort of um measuring points

3:51:22for me personally single tier municipalities approximately the same size of us uh approximate

3:51:26to toronto all the all the very similar comparables that we have as a community and um and the delegate

3:51:32was right barry has uh 10 counselors and a mayor they pay their they pay their counselors 42 000

3:51:37dollars and seven forty two thousand seven hundred dollars which is markedly lower than ourselves

3:51:42the city of kinkston has a similar number of counselors and a mayor uh and they pay their

3:51:48counselors 45 000 per year so um i don't see a justification um at all when we compare ourselves

3:51:56to the most comparable communities um we would be um a big outlier from those two communities in

3:52:03terms of our council uh remuneration if we decided to take this track we can look at data and we can

3:52:10in right policy but you know at the end of the day those are our best comparators in the province

3:52:15of ontario and we are already far exceeding their pay for city counselors and we are outnumbering

3:52:21in some cases their council as well so i'll be voting against it and i'll be voting for the status

3:52:26quo okay thank you um you know i'm very sorry i know that councillor Caton uh was one of the but

3:52:35who who else sorry i should have written clausen okay so it's clausen and then katin thank you um

3:52:42yes i think this question is for the mover um my question is just regard with regard to that

3:52:47comparison of the 55th percentile which is the average of a number of municipalities versus

3:52:54i just want to know the difference between those numbers the 53 and the 59 because

3:52:58councillor Goller brought up on page three that were aligned to market at 53 versus i think you're

3:53:05referring to the comparator data on yeah so i was looking thanks for the question it was uh

3:53:11table two and the additional calculations provided by staff and i believe councillor Goller was

3:53:17removing any municipality that is lower tier that has a lower and an upper tier

3:53:23and concentrating only on single tier okay thank you thank you for the clarification

3:53:29thank you and then uh to katin and then to uh honor them back to the mover yeah

3:53:34thank you through you mr mayor um i think that uh more so than just the size of the municipality

3:53:44we were not even considering the cost of living in the municipality and i've lived in sudbury

3:53:50it is much cheaper than living in guelph and um i know that kingston waterloo berry

3:53:59also cheaper than living in guelph so when we're looking at paying people to be able to live in

3:54:05guelph and work in guelph then we need to factor that in and it's not something that has been in

3:54:13the direction from staff but it's something that i'm considering when i'm looking at the numbers

3:54:18between what's being proposed by councillor Caron versus councillor Goller so um equity wise i have

3:54:27already stated quite a few times that at the pay rate that we have this is not a doable job

3:54:37unless you have a spouse that can carry you you've already had significant savings you're not

3:54:43somebody who has additional expenses such as disabilities you're not a single parent there's

3:54:48any number of reasons why this does not help us move towards having a diverse population on our

3:54:56council and i i'm very happy for those of you who can afford that pay but most of our population

3:55:06can't afford that as their primary job and the number of daytime meetings the fact that we

3:55:13have equity policy for romadon it does not make it sustainable so i'm going to be voting for

3:55:20councillor Caron's motion because i think that that is a push in the right direction towards

3:55:25making our council more diverse and more respective of the population that actually lives in guave

3:55:34okay thank you so much uh councillor downer and then uh councillor Caron just turn i think just

3:55:40similar to councillor caden i'm going to support it i i think it's very difficult to compare even

3:55:46to kingston and barry which are are the two that we often do compare it is we don't know and just a

3:55:52search how much administrative assistance those councillors get i remember 20 years ago going

3:56:00to king the kitchener which isn't on this comparator but uh they had they had a uh an

3:56:06an assistant for every three councillors at that time and the same with brandford had had one like

3:56:13they each had for two so like it it's very difficult even that way like so if you don't have that kind

3:56:19of assistance it's just more time for the councillors to be doing their own administrative work which

3:56:24it's traditionally what we've all done uh we've all kept our own mail lists and things like that

3:56:30so i think it's just been a very difficult to compare and i think there is an issue with the

3:56:34policy i i don't know how we correct that and how we look at that maybe we forget about the

3:56:40comparator issues and start looking at what the role is and what the hours are and and what that

3:56:47might involve and you know and and start looking at these other factors that are involved in in

3:56:54the work as well so i i think i will support councillor uh coran's motion just to sort of

3:57:01move that a step closer um at that time i saw i got to say about that i guess for now i said a lot

3:57:07the last uh and then finally i'll go to the mover uh to wrap it up thank you just wrapping it up i

3:57:15know and i recognize councillor gibson's um and councillor Goller's um calculations uh based on

3:57:22the current 55th percentile so i did a quick search and uh barry is barry's staff are recommending

3:57:2970218 for 2026 and beyond and uh that includes a 2400 uh annual car allowance so there's additional

3:57:40figures that need to be added in there so i think we're we're using numbers as of today and we're

3:57:44basing it on calculations today but i think it's important to remember that our uh single tier

3:57:50comparator municipalities um have set or are about to set their compensation review and we're using

3:57:58figures from the past as we're calculating our 55th percentile and we may end up finding ourselves

3:58:04at the low end um once they've passed their compensation uh decisions thank you thank you

3:58:13very much is there anything further no okay um so okay yeah i'll just i'll just call i'll just call

3:58:27the vote then uh all right everyone ready uh all those against this motion please raise your hand

3:58:35okay so it's richardson and uh billings and uh chou and galler and gibson and guthrie

3:58:47i think it passes seven six through you mr mayor the motion is carried seven to six okay great

3:58:54great we can celebrate that it's done okay so thank you very much and we will now move on

3:59:02to our last item i believe yes it is uh councillor Goller asked for this to be added here for us to

3:59:11it's a what we normally would call a support motion we have a delegation morgan dandy that

3:59:18wants to come and speak to this just as you're coming up morgan to get ready for your delegation

3:59:23i'll just give the floor to councillor Goller as the one presenting it um is there a a seconder

3:59:30for this already okay caron will second so why don't you just speak to it as the mover just as

3:59:37our delegation comes up and gets ready okay thank you worship um this this motion actually came

3:59:43through an informational report from other municipalities uh they are attached here um

3:59:49and it was actually uh miss miss dandy who reached out to us and and alerted us to this so so thank you

3:59:55to to you morgan for for bringing this to our attention and making sure that we got eyes on it

4:00:02there is a bill um going through at the provincial level uh that will be decided i believe in

4:00:08august this year to protect our um farmland and and that is the the nature of this to make sure

4:00:14that there is um additional scrutiny done whenever farmland is converted for other uses um and um

4:00:22it is on the on the screen um for everyone but and just for the for the sake of those that

4:00:28that are at home that may not have seen this uh the motion started that well city council

4:00:32support bill 21 protect our food act 2025 and strongly urges the provincial government

4:00:38to support this and every measure to protect our farmland to aggressively prevent further losses

4:00:44and to ensure the future of agriculture in Ontario for future generations and then that

4:00:50we distribute this motion to other municipalities thank you so morgan thank you for waiting and

4:00:57i'll turn the mic over to you with your up to five minutes uh delegation go right ahead

4:01:04council members staff fellow gualfights we all know farmers feed cities bill 21 protect our food

4:01:15act is designed to protect the land from which farmers feed us because once land is converted

4:01:22away from agriculture it is extremely difficult to get prime crop fields restored

4:01:31every body needs to eat and farmers feed cities even though you can't say it with me

4:01:40you can think it because i believe you all agree yes farmers feed cities

4:01:50a city of guelph document titled agri-innovation sector profile lists many reasons why i found

4:01:57it curious that guelph had not yet given formal acknowledgement or support to bill 21 protect

4:02:04our food act 2025 from jobs to business and research without protecting the land where our