B.C. boosting community coroners’ pay by 55 per cent, job ad reveals

A member of the B.C. Coroners Service arrives at a staging area at Purden Lake Resort near the site of a helicopter crash, east of Prince George, B.C., on Tuesday, Sept. 26, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/James Doyle

Community coroners in British Columbia have been given a 55 per cent pay boost as the BC Coroners Service looks to fill vacancies in dozens of communities across the province. 

The wage increase to $49.77 an hour for community coroners came into effect on June 1, after years of complaints about low wages for the sometimes-gruesome job.

Community coroners had been paid about $32 an hour since 2016, and current and former coroners told The Canadian Press last year that they had been lobbying for better wages for years.

They were also critical of their 24 hours a day on-call period without pay, unless they were sent to a death scene.

BC Coroners Service spokesperson Holly Tally said in an interview on Friday that the service couldn’t reveal the planned pay increase while an order-in-council process was ongoing. 

“Hiccups can occur. Questions can pop up,” she said. “We weren’t allowed to speak about it while it’s going through that process.” 

However, a job advertisement from the B.C. public service with a July 8, 2026, deadline, says the BC Coroners Service is looking to fill vacancies in dozens of communities in the Okanagan, the Lower Mainland, the Sunshine Coast, northern Vancouver Island, the West Kootenays and the Sea-to-Sky region. 

Tally said she didn’t know the exact number of jobs the service wants to fill because some positions in remote areas can cover more than one community. 

“Like all front-line service areas, it is harder to staff in northern and remote communities, and that’s a challenge we experience as well,” she said. “We put out the job posting and we put the wage there, and we hope that’s the enticement.” 

The ad says community coroners work “as and when required,” with no guaranteed hours and compensation depending on the number of cases they handle. The positions are “excluded from union membership,” it says. 

The Ministry of Public Safety did not provide comment on the wage increase on Friday. 

A budget estimates briefing book from the ministry for 2025-2026 said community coroners have “no set work shifts and do not collect medical or pension benefits.” 

“The unpredictability of hours of work and resulting earnings, limits the pool of interested candidates for this role, which makes it difficult to fill positions in many areas of the province and requires continual recruitment and training,” the briefing book said. 

This report by Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press, was first published July 3, 2026