Teaching and Research Assistant Pay Rates at Canadian Universities
By Muntasir Minhaz • Published Aug 19, 2026 • Scholarships & Funding, Canadian Universities & Colleges
Teaching assistant pay is set by union collective agreements and varies by school. At the University of Toronto, CUPE 3902 sets the TA rate at $52.97 an hour from January 2025, rising to $53.92 from January 2026. At UBC, CUPE 2278 sets graduate TA pay at $37.53-$38.99 an hour from September 2023. Research assistant pay usually is not set the same way, since most RAs get paid from a supervisor's grant instead of a union wage scale.
💵 U of T TAs (CUPE 3902 Unit 1): $52.97/hr from Jan 2025, $53.92/hr from Jan 2026.
💵 UBC grad TAs (CUPE 2278): $37.53-$38.99/hr from Sept 2023.
🎓 Rates come from each school's own collective agreement, not a national scale.
RA pay is often set by your supervisor's grant budget, not a union rate.
Why TA Pay Varies by School
Canada has no single wage scale for teaching assistants. Each unionized campus negotiates its own hourly rate through its own local, most often affiliated with CUPE (Canadian Union of Public Employees) or PSAC (Public Service Alliance of Canada). Rates depend on the local's bargaining history, cost of living in that city, and how recently the contract was renewed or renegotiated, not on a national standard.
What the Confirmed Rates Look Like
| University | Union local | Hourly rate | Effective |
|---|---|---|---|
| University of Toronto | CUPE 3902, Unit 1 | $52.97 | January 1, 2025 |
| University of Toronto | CUPE 3902, Unit 1 | $53.92 | January 1, 2026 |
| University of British Columbia | CUPE 2278, Component 1 | $37.53-$38.99 | September 2023 |
The University of Toronto figures come from the CUPE 3902 Unit 1 collective agreement posted by U of T's labour relations office , covering January 2024 to December 2026. The UBC figures come from CUPE 2278's contract, reported by The Ubyssey , which put the increase at 6.75% over the prior year's rate. UBC's rate applies to graduate TAs specifically. Undergraduate TAs at UBC sit on a separate, lower scale under the same local.
Other Unionized Campuses
TAs and RAs are unionized at most major Canadian research universities, though published hourly figures are not always easy to find outside each local's own agreement. Locals with active TA or combined TA/RA bargaining units include CUPE 5524.01 at the University of Waterloo, CUPE 3913 at the University of Guelph, CUPE 2626 at the University of Ottawa, CUPE 3903 at York University, and CUPE 3906 at McMaster University. If your school is not listed here, search "[your university] CUPE" or "[your university] PSAC" plus "collective agreement" to find your local's current wage schedule, usually filed as a Schedule A or Appendix in the agreement PDF.
Why Research Assistant Pay Works Differently
Most graduate research assistant positions do not run through a fixed union wage scale the way TA positions do. An RA is typically paid from your supervisor's research grant, and the amount depends on what the grant budgets for a student researcher, not a negotiated hourly rate. Some schools fold RA work into the same bargaining unit as TA work: at Waterloo, CUPE 5524.01 covers both Graduate Teaching Assistants and Graduate Research Assistants under one agreement. At McMaster, CUPE 3906 Unit 1 covers TAs plus students who hold a Research Assistantship specifically granted in lieu of a Teaching Assistantship, but not general grant-funded RA work. At UBC, TAs are unionized under CUPE 2278, but a separate attempt to unionize UBC's roughly 3,250 graduate research assistants was dismissed by the BC Labour Relations Board in March 2025, so UBC RA pay stays set by individual supervisors rather than a collective agreement.
Rates Move With Each Bargaining Round
A campus's TA rate is not fixed for your whole degree. It changes whenever the local negotiates a new contract, and the jump can be significant if the previous agreement ran long or fell behind. McGill's teaching assistant union, AGSEM, went on strike starting March 25, 2024, during a dispute with the university over a new contract, an example of how a single bargaining round can move a campus's wage meaningfully rather than through small annual bumps. Check whether your school's current agreement is close to expiring before you rely heavily on today's rate for multi-year budget planning.
CUPE and PSAC Are Different Kinds of Unions
CUPE represents the largest share of unionized Canadian workers overall and has organized post-secondary locals for decades, which is why it covers the most TA and RA units on this list. PSAC represents federal public service workers as its core membership but has expanded into organizing academic workers at a growing number of universities, particularly where CUPE had not already certified a local. A handful of campuses, like McGill's AGSEM, run as independent locals unaffiliated with either national union. Which union represents you affects who negotiates on your behalf and which national strike fund and grievance support structure backs your local.
What This Means When You Compare Offers
When you weigh funding packages between schools, check whether the number you are quoted is a unionized hourly TA rate, a non-union RA stipend, or a combined package that blends both. A higher published TA hourly rate does not automatically mean a higher total funding package once you add in whether RA pay is unionized, how many hours of TA work the offer includes, and what tuition or fee support comes with it.