Saturday March 28, 2015
Editorial cartoon by Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Saturday March 28, 2015
Ontario’s ‘sunshine list’ tops 100,000 members for first time
Ontario’s taxpayer-funded $100,000 club includes more than 100,000 members for first time ever.
Find out who made what: the Star’s searchable databases
The annual “sunshine list” of six-figures-and-up earners on the provincial public payroll released Friday included 111,440 people in 2014 — 13,644 more than the 97,796 the year before or a 13.9 per cent increase.
That means the equivalent of the population of cities the size of Burlington or Thunder Bay made this year’s tally, which was curated in six volumes spanning 2,491 pages.
As usual, Ontario Power Generation chief executive Tom Mitchell, who runs the nuclear operation, was the province’s highest paid civil servant, taking in $1.555 million last year.
The silver medallist was also from OPG with former chief financial officer Donn Hanbidge, fired after a scathing 2013 auditor general’s report on the electricity utility, receiving $1.208 million, including severance.
Bronze went to University of Toronto Asset Management Corporation’s president and CEO William Moriarty at $937,500.
“The people of Ontario have a right to know how their dollars are being spent. Ontario has the leanest government in Canada while still providing high-quality public services that people can rely on,” Treasury Board President Deb Matthews said in a statement at Queen’s Park.
“Today, we are releasing the 2014 public sector salary disclosure list as part of our government’s commitment to be the most open and transparent government in the country,” said Matthews, who made $165,851.
Premier Kathleen Wynne, whose salary, like all MPPs, has been frozen for seven years, earned $208,974. Interim Progressive Conservative Leader Jim Wilson made $159,266 while NDP Leader Andrea Horwath took home $158,157. (Source: Toronto Star)