The B.C. government is boosting the pay for community coroners by about 55 per cent, after years of complaints about low wages for the sometimes gruesome job.
The province is looking for community coroners to cover death investigations in dozens of communities, with pay of $49.77 an hour, up from $32 an hour.
A job ad from the British Columbia public service says the wage increase came into effect on June 1, in the first pay jump for community coroners in a decade .
Current and former coroners told The Canadian Press last year that they had been lobbying for better wages for years, while also complaining being on-call 24 hours a day without getting paid unless they were sent to a death scene.
The job ad says the BC Coroners Service is looking to fill about 40 vacancies in communities including the Okanagan, the Lower Mainland, the Sunshine Coast, northern Vancouver Island, the West Kootenays and the Sea-to-Sky region.
It says community coroners work "as and when required," with no guaranteed hours and compensation depending on the number of cases they handle.
The Ministry of Public Safety did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Picture Courtesy: THE CANADIAN PRESS/James Doyle
