The top 100 bureaucrats in the provincial government will receive salary increases as large as 43 per cent, all in a bid to attract and keep top executives, B.C.'s minister responsible for labour market development said Friday.
Murray Coell defended the estimated $4 million in salary increases as a move necessary to keep pace with the rest of the country.
The government announced the pay raises on Friday — retroactive to Aug. 1 — for deputy ministers, assistant deputy ministers and Premier Gordon Campbell's deputy minister.
Coell estimated there are about 20 deputy ministers and 80 assistant deputy ministers working for the government.
At the top of the heap, Campbell's deputy minister, Jessica McDonald, is in line for a raise of almost $105,000 or about 43 per cent, with her salary reaching a maximum of $348,600, up from $243,936.
Maximum annual salaries for deputy ministers will increase to $299,215 from $221,760. Assistant deputy ministers are now eligible to receive maximum annual salaries of $195,000, up from $160,000.
The new salary structure places British Columbia in third place among provinces and the federal government. Alberta and Ontario are the top paying provinces when it comes to its bureaucrats, Coell said.
Prior to the changes, the province ranked 10th in Canada for salaries for assistant deputy ministers and sixth for deputy ministers. Deputy minister salaries are set at 83 per cent of federal salaries.
"We just can't be 10th in the country for salaries and expect we would get the best people," Coell said.
"I recognize that these are top decision makers and if we want to retain — and indeed, when people retire attract new talent from across the country — we have to be paying them what is consistent with the rest of the country."
Coell said the B.C. public service is facing challenges due to an aging workforce, with 65 per cent of assistant deputy ministers set to retire within 10 years.
"We're going to need to attract new people," he said. "We want to be able to attract the best the country has to offer, and we can only do that if our salaries are comparable to Alberta and Ontario."
The president of the B.C. Federation of Labour, Jim Sinclair, called the big wage hike obscene considering the government froze the minimum wage at $8 an hour.
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