Even though the City of Montreal has three times as many inhabitants and manages three times as much public money as Quebec, the salaries of the chiefs of staff of the mayors of the two largest cities in Quebec are identical.
In 2023, office directors Clément Laberge (Quebec) and Marie-Ève Gagnon then Mathieu Vick (Montreal) received an annual base salary of $156,000, according to access to information requests.
Danielle Pilette, associate professor at UQAM and specialized in municipal finance and taxation, was not surprised, even though the metropolis manages an annual operating budget of $6.76 billion compared to $1.9 billion for the national capital.
According to the expert, the marked demographic difference between the two cities is also not a “predominant” criterion for making this kind of comparison.
Politicization and media coverage
In his eyes, it is “the higher level of politicization and media coverage of issues in Quebec City compared to Montreal” which explains the similarity between the two salaries.
“Quebec City is the seat of the Quebec government, which it is persistently approaching to obtain its share of civil service positions, events, investments, etc. Therefore, a factor of immediate proximity to provincial politics,” Mr.me Drains.
She adds that the mayors who have succeeded one another at the head of Quebec are “strong personalities [qui] are leading a broad stance against the Quebec government and are greatly politicizing the issues.”
Also, “Quebec City reigns much more unchallenged over the metropolitan territory than the City of Montreal over its metropolitan region (…) Montreal shares the spotlight with at least two other large cities in the region (Laval and Longueuil),” she says.
Another argument comes from the fact that the population of Montreal is “very heterogeneous” and that the media are more numerous there. “The population of Quebec is much more homogeneous and the media are few. Because of concentration, any controversy is likely to take on a lot of magnitude and produce a runaway opinion,” believes the associate professor.
As a result, “the concentration of certain issues and their management by the chief of staff of the City of Quebec certainly deserves remuneration [aussi importante qu’à Montréal]” she concludes.
Reactions
In Quebec, Thomas Gaudreault, press attaché to Mayor Marchand, points out that “salaries are determined by the mayor based on the salaries of the last chiefs of staff and his own remuneration (…) The workload of this type of shadow position can sometimes be underestimated, but there are very few comparisons with other private sectors or with other cities.”
On the Montreal side, Marikym Gaudreault, assistant director of communications, states that “the remuneration of cabinet members is determined in line with the salary structure defined in the working conditions of cabinet staff.”
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