Waterloo think tanks pay the most for top scholars

WATERLOO — Waterloo has one think tank to study the stars and another think tank to study public policy, and they have one key thing in common.

Both pay their leaders more than local universities pay their presidents, to help recruit top scholars to the region.

Ontario’s latest salary disclosure shows that the highest-paid local scholars are physicist Neil Turok, director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, and economist Rohinton Medhora, president of the Centre for International Governance Innovation.

Turok was paid $499,110 and Medhora was paid $427,370 last year. They are the only local scholars among Ontario’s 25 highestpaid academics.

To compare, the University of Waterloo paid $400,000 to president Feridun Hamdullahpur, Wilfrid Laurier University paid $371,420 to president Max Blouw, and Conestoga College paid $409,900 to John Tibbits.

The local think tanks have other traits in common. Both were founded with BlackBerry money (when the company was still Research In Motion). They are within sight of each other in downtown Waterloo. And both have global aspirations.

Turok’s high pay to study the universe is not a new

revelation, but Medhora’s high pay to study public policy is. It’s being made public for the first time.

Salaries at the Centre for International Governance Innovation are “an important part of our recruiting efforts” and “are intended to be competitive globally and attract experts from across the world,” said Spencer Tripp, the centre’s director of communications. He said salaries compare appropriately to other top international think tanks.

The Waterloo think tank stopped revealing its salaries in 2012, the year Medhora joined, because it didn’t receive $1 million in annual provincial funding, the amount required to compel disclosure. That’s changed as more provincial funding flows to the organization.

The provincial list of public-sector employees earning more than $100,000 last year includes 4,687 people who are employed by local municipalities, universities, schools, hospitals, and other public agencies headquartered in Waterloo Region. That’s up from 2,191 people in 2009.

This number excludes other local residents directly employed by the province or by public agencies that are not headquartered here.

Almost half of the people on the 2016 list work at the University of Waterloo, Wilfrid Laurier University or Conestoga College.

Local fire and police departments employ 995 people on the latest six-figure list. This includes 469 constables with the Waterloo Regional Police and 171 first-class firefighters in Kitchener, Cambridge and Waterloo.