Ontario’s “sunshine list” of public servants earning $100,000 or more soared 25 per cent last year, raising new questions about its relevance.
It names a record 377,666 employees, from the seven-figure hydro executive who kept the lights on to hospital CEOs, transit executives, bureaucrats, teachers, nurses and police officers.
That’s almost quadruple the number of a decade ago as inflation has eroded the threshold introduced in 1996, when just 4,501 people made the cut.
“It’s just become less meaningful as the salary of almost everyone has gone up over the decades,” Bank of Montreal chief economist Douglas Porter said Friday.
“It might be time to double the threshold,” he added, noting that average wages are twice what they were 29 years ago.
While $100,000 is above the median income in Ontario, it’s not what it was in 1996, said Conference Board of Canada chief economist Pedro Antunes.
“It’s silly. In a few years, everybody that’s not on the sunshine list will be on the poverty list,” he told the Star, saying the threshold should have been indexed to inflation from the start.
“I agree $100,000 is a high salary, but there’s a lot of professionals in the public service and it’s not out of whack with what a lot of people are earning in the private sector with the equivalent credentials.”
According to the Bank of Canada inflation calculator, $100,000 in 1996 would have been worth $180,250 in 2024. Conversely, $100,000 in 2024 was the equivalent of $55,479 in 1996.
Last year’s list is a substantial increase from 300,572 people in 2023 and 111,440 a decade ago.
But Premier Doug Ford and previous Liberal governments have repeatedly refused to change the $100,000 threshold, saying it has become a benchmark for Ontarians.
“Nearly half the growth on the list was driven by the school board sector, with teachers contributing to 87 per cent of this increase,” Treasury Board President Caroline Mulroney said in a statement.
Educators and other public sector workers benefitted from retroactive pay increases after the courts struck down Ford’s Bill 124 wage cap legislation.
The top 10 earners were led by Ontario Power Generation (OPG) chief executive Ken Hartwick, who retired at the end of last year with a pay packet of $2,010,896.
In second spot was his replacement, Nicolle Butcher, at $978,380 in her previous role as chief operating officer. The Crown utility’s chief nuclear officer Steve Gregoris followed at $919,310.
In fourth spot was Metrolinx chief executive Phil Verster, who left the provincial transit agency in December after seven years and before it could open the long-overdue Eglinton Crosstown line, at $883,097.
Rounding out the top 10: University Health Network CEO Kevin Smith at $833,097; Hospital for Sick Children CEO Ronald Cohn $870,013; OPG chief projects officer Subo Sinnathamby at $848,713; the utility’s chief financial officer Aida Cipolla at $835,094; Ontario Health CEO Matthew Anderson at $823,200; and Jon Franke, OPG’s senior vice-president of nuclear at $818,174.
Former TTC chief executive Richard Leary, who stepped down at the end of August, earned $670,372.53.
Also in the transportation field, salaries for 120 vice-presidents at Metrolinx ranged from lows around the $100,000 mark to $389,475.
Among post-secondary leaders, Conestoga College president John Tibbits received a pay hike of almost 30 per cent $636,107 from $494,716 the previous year.
A number of other colleges and universities posted pay increases for senior administrators while warning of cuts to programs and staffing, citing government underfunding, cuts to international students and the lucrative fees they paid — as well as inflation and ongoing tuition freezes.
