Low salaries for federal judges hampers effort to recruit top talent, federal commission says

Judges for top courts across Canada are underpaid and should receive raises of about 7 per cent to ensure highly qualified candidates continue to apply for jobs behind the bench, according to a commission that reviews judges’ salaries.

The proposed raise would increase the salary of most federally appointed judges to $424,700 from $396,700. There are 968 full-time and 230 part-time judges sitting on federally appointed benches, which include provincial superior and appeal courts, the Federal and Tax courts, and the Supreme Court of Canada.

The recommendation is part of a process headed by the Judicial Compensation and Benefits Commission, under the Judges Act, every four years. The commission considered thousands of pages of submissions from the legal community and the federal government since late last year. Its report was tabled in Parliament on Wednesday.

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Judges’ salaries are inadequate, concluded the three-person commission chaired by Anne Giardini, a lawyer, corporate director and former president of Weyerhaeuser Canada.

“This inadequacy is having an ongoing adverse effect on the attraction of outstanding candidates to the judiciary,” the report stated.

The report had been submitted to Justice Minister Sean Fraser in early July. An official response is required by November.

“Our government will take the time to carefully review the recommendations,” said Jeremy Bellefeuille, the minister’s director of communications.

The commission’s reasoning for increased pay mirrors calls by some judges in recent years. The commission said the often higher pay that lawyers receive in the private sector has reduced interest in becoming a judge among top performers in the legal profession. The report cited an average salary of $710,000 for private-sector lawyers, significantly more than what judges make.

The federal government in the salary review had argued judges are well paid and that legislated annual increases to pay are sufficient. Ottawa also said there continues to be strong interest among applicants in becoming a judge.

In the latest cohort of applicants to the federal benches, 540 candidates were assessed, and of those, 95 were highly recommended, 106 were recommended and 88 judges were appointed, according to Office of the Commissioner for Federal Judicial Affairs Canada. The data are for the year from October, 2023, through October, 2024.

The proposed raise would be the first such increase in 20 years, the commission report noted. The increased salaries would be set as of April, 2024.

The raise would come on top of the regular annual increases that judges receive under the Judges Act, based on what’s called the industrial aggregate index compiled by Statistics Canada, a broad gauge of earnings across economic sectors. This April, judges’ salaries rose by 4.6 per cent.

Ottawa had called on the commission to cap such increases over the next four years to a total of 14 per cent.

While most federally appointed judges could see their salary, as of April, 2024, rise to $424,700, there are several levels of higher pay. In the Supreme Court, the salary of the chief justice could rise to $546,100 from $510,100, and the other eight justices could see raises to $505,700 from $472,400.

The recommendation to pay judges more lands during a time when the federal government is aiming to cut costs across the board. The proposed increase would cost Ottawa about $30-million a year.

Spending on the federal judiciary is budgeted at $847-million for 2025-26, up from $790-million a year earlier, according to Federal Judicial Affairs’ latest departmental plan. That increase comes in part from the annual wage adjustments judges automatically receive under the Judges Act.