Run ventilators, manage airways and keep people breathing in intensive care. Three years of college, then shift work.
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What you earn and what it costs to get there.
Typical
$82,000
New grad
$65,000
Senior or charge
$100,000
Job Bank's median is $41 an hour, about $85,000 a year full time, with a spread of roughly $30 to $51 an hour. Almost all hospital jobs are unionized with a pay grid that climbs for about 8 years. Nights, weekends and overtime push real earnings above the grid.
$32 to $38 an hour
About $65,000 to $75,000 a year at full-time hours
Alberta and Ontario start near the top. Atlantic provinces a little lower. Add shift premiums for evenings, nights and weekends.
$45 to $50 an hour
Roughly $95,000 or more with premiums and overtime
Anesthesia assistants, a post-graduate role many respiratory therapists move into, earn about $100,000 to $115,000.
Tuition, fees, exams and kit. Not rent, food or travel
A three year college program is the only route in, so the cost is fixed and fairly low for a hospital career. The low end is a cheaper program with books, uniforms, immunizations and the national exam. The high end is a higher fee program plus the CBRC (Canadian Board for Respiratory Care) exam and a first year of provincial registration. Registration then runs 400 to 700 dollars every year for as long as you practise.
Roughly $15,000 to $30,000 in tuition. One of the cheaper routes into an intensive care career.
Defined-benefit pension
HOOPP (the Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan) in Ontario hospitals. Similar plans in other provinces.
Extended health and dental
Shift premiums
Extra per hour for evenings, nights and weekends.
12-hour shifts
More full days off, which many people like.
The exact path from high school to qualified.
Three focused years, then a national exam.
High school
Grades 11 and 12
Grade 12 biology, chemistry, physics and math. Most programs want all four.
Respiratory therapy program
3 years
A 3-year college advanced diploma, or a degree at a few universities. Years 1 and 2 are classroom and lab. Year 3 is full-time clinical placement in hospitals, unpaid.
Write the CBRC (Canadian Board for Respiratory Care) exam
After graduation
The national certification exam. The board recently renamed itself Health Professionals Testing Canada, but the exam still goes by CBRC (Canadian Board for Respiratory Care). Passing makes you a registered respiratory therapist.
Register with your provincial regulator
A few weeks
In Ontario that is the CRTO (College of Respiratory Therapists of Ontario). Most provinces have a college.
Biology
Required.
Chemistry
Required. Blood gases are chemistry.
Physics
Gas laws and pressure are the daily science of ventilators.
Math
Drug and ventilator calculations.
English
Charting and handover.
Programs are accredited nationally. Some examples:
Michener Institute (Toronto), Fanshawe, Algonquin, Conestoga
Ontario
SAIT (Southern Alberta Institute of Technology), NAIT (Northern Alberta Institute of Technology)
Alberta
Thompson Rivers University
British Columbia
Dalhousie
Nova Scotia
Vanier College
Quebec
Ontario, Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland and Labrador each have a college that registers respiratory therapists, for example the CRTO (College of Respiratory Therapists of Ontario). Because the CBRC (Canadian Board for Respiratory Care) exam is national, moving between provinces is straightforward. Where there is no college yet, employers still require the national credential.
Things you don't need, but that help.
Anesthesia assistant
A 1 to 2 year post-graduate program. You work in the operating room with anesthesiologists. Higher pay and daytime hours.
Neonatal and pediatric transport
Riding with sick newborns between hospitals by ambulance or air.
Cardiovascular perfusion
Running the heart-lung machine during surgery. A separate 2-year program. Pays well over $100,000.
Sleep lab and pulmonary function testing
Regular hours, no intensive care.
Home and community care
Setting up oxygen and home ventilators. Daytime, lots of driving.
CPR and first aid
Required before placements anyway.
Volunteer in a hospital
Shows you can handle the setting.
Comfort with physics and equipment
You troubleshoot machines under pressure.
Fitness for 12-hour shifts on your feet
Day to day, pros and cons, where you'd work.
Twelve hours, days or nights. You start with rounds in the ICU (intensive care unit), checking every patient on a ventilator and adjusting settings with the doctors. Then a blood gas, a breathing treatment on the ward, and a call to the emergency department to intubate someone who cannot breathe. Later a delivery in the NICU (neonatal intensive care unit) where a newborn needs help with its first breaths. You carry a pager all shift and drop everything when a code is called.
The good
The hard parts
Like the field but not this exact job?
Things people don't tell you.
Respiratory therapy exists as its own profession mainly in Canada and the US. In most other countries, nurses and doctors split the work. A Canadian credential is well respected south of the border.
During the 2020 pandemic, respiratory therapists were the people running the ventilators in intensive care. It was the first time most Canadians heard the job title.
Neonatal transport teams that move critically ill babies between hospitals usually include a respiratory therapist, sometimes by helicopter or fixed-wing aircraft.
Doctors decide the goals, but respiratory therapists make most of the hour-to-hour ventilator adjustments in intensive care. Nobody else on the unit knows the machines as well.
Last checked September 2026. Pay figures are typical full-time annual amounts in Canadian dollars, based on Government of Canada Job Bank wage data and published salary grids. They vary by province, employer and experience. Tuition is for domestic students.