Top 10 highest paid university officials in Canada

Here are the Top 10 highest paid university officials in Canada, ranked by their base salaries.*

1. David Johnson
University of Waterloo president (now Governor General of Canada) — $1,041,881

2. Moriarty William
president of the University of Toronto Asset Management Corp. — $697,020

3. Amit Chakma
vice-president of the University of Waterloo (but president of Western as of July, 2010)  — $500,000

4. Richard Levin
vice principal of health and medical affairs and dean of medicine at McGill University — $496,921

5. Mamdouh Shoukri
president of York University — $480,030

6. Indira Samarasekera
president of the University of Alberta — $479,000

7. Ramona Lumpkin
principal of Huron University College at Western (now principal of Mount Saint Vincent) – $469,837

8. Carl G. Amrhein
provost and vice-president academic at the University of Alberta — $461,000

9. Alastair Summerlee
president of the University of Guelph — $440,590

10. Dezsö J. Horváth
dean of the Schulich School of Business at York University — $432,374

*There are a couple caveats to this list. Many university administrators, especially presidents, receive significant benefits packages in addition to their base pay. Alberta’s Indira Samarasekera, McGill principal Heather Munroe-Blum and University of British Columbia president Stephen Toope all received more than $200,000 in other compensation and benefits on top of their regular salaries.

This list is based on figures from all universities in British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and Newfoundland, plus the University of Saskatchewan, NSCAD, the University of King’s College, Mount Saint Vincent University and Université Sainte-Anne. Schools in New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Nova Scotia and Saskatchewan are not required to release salary information and many chose not to share. Here is where you can find out what your own university’s administrators make. All figures are for 2010, except those from Quebec, which are from 2009.

To see how university administrators’ salaries have changed since 2008, check out this Maclean’s On Campus post. The highest paid official then was Felix Chee, who made a salary of $549,000 as the president of the University of Toronto Asset Management Corp.