Montreal's University Bosses Made Serious Bank Last Year — Here's How Much They Were Paid
Hint: it's more than you're making!
A UQAM building near Place-des-Arts. Right: McGill University's Arts building.
University is expensive, especially if you're not a born Quebecer. But to the average student, where all that money goes might seem like a mystery known only to the bureaucracy inside each institution. Some of it funnels straight into the coffers of the highest-level administrators, including (but certainly not limited to) principals, rectors and chancellors.
We know that McGill's principal made a base salary of $492,543 between 2021 and 2022, with additional tens of thousands in "taxable elements." The grand total value of her earnings added up to $595,325 during that period of time.
Concordia University's Graham Carr made just under McGill's principal's salary with a base of $464,830 and just over $2,000 in other taxable benefits. Carr's total earnings therefore had a value of $466,882 during the 2021 to 2022 period, with an additional $19,633 in reimbursements and allowances.
Over at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM), Rector Magda Fusaro brought in a significantly lower though still six-figure base salary of $253,942 during the 2021 to 2022 period. Her other taxable elements had a value of $11,980. She also had $2,884 in allowances and reimbursements.
The Université de Montréal's rector, Daniel Jutras, earned a base salary of $419,883 between 2021 and 2022, with $1,162 in additional taxable elements bringing the total value of his earnings to $421,045.
For comparison, at UdeM, the next-highest-paid executives — all vice-rectors in some capacity — earned just over $271,000 as their base salary.
The average salary in Quebec, as of December 2022, was $58,736, according to Statistics Canada data. This means that McGill, the university that pays its chief administrator the highest base salary, is spending the equivalent of the income of approximately 8.4 average québécois workers on keeping one person wealthy.
This article's cover image was used for illustrative purposes only.
