WHO EARNS MORE THAN THE PREMIER?
You might be surprised,
With salaries around the $800,000 mark, bosses of last summer’s Pan Am Games won four of the top 10 spots in the latest “sunshine list” of provincial public sector workers earning more than $100,000 annually.
But with a payout approaching $1.6 million in 2015, recently retired Ontario Power Generation CEO Tom Mitchell remained No. 1, while salaries from Hydro One were not included following the company’s partial privatization.
Despite that, the list filling seven volumes increased by about 4,000 workers to a record high 115,432 — a pace of growth that exceeds inflation.
“We are reaching the stage where unionized people are starting to tip over the $100,000 (mark),” said Treasury Board President Deb Matthews, the person in charge of the government’s fiscal restraint efforts.
Since the list debuted in 1996, the threshold has been eroded to the point where it would be $146,774 if inflation were taken into account.
That would make the list 83 per cent smaller, said Matthews, defending the Pan Am executive pay packets that clocked in at roughly four times the salary of her boss, Premier Kathleen Wynne.
“They were paid what they were paid,” Matthews told reporters Thursday.
“When you run an international event, you have to run it with the very best people you can find, and pay the price that international events pay.”
Matthews acknowledged that publishing public sector salaries — pioneered by former Progressive Conservative premier Mike Harris — comes with a price as taxpayers parse their comparative value.
In another Pan Am example, the senior vice-president of communications, who four years ago was press secretary to then-premier Dalton McGuinty and not on the sunshine list, made a $299,897 salary in 2015 — well above Wynne’s $208,974 salary and $400 in taxable benefits.
“We believe in letting people judge for themselves. We actually know that transparency will cause political problems, sometimes,” Matthews said, citing personal support workers who bathe and toilet seniors in nursing homes, among other things.
They recently received government-mandated wage increases of $4 per hour and now make $16.50.
“Do PSWs get paid enough? No, they do not . . . I think we need to do even better,” added Matthews, who earned the standard cabinet minister’s salary of $165,851plus $326.07 in taxable benefits. Opposition parties accused Wynne’s government of trying to dampen public scrutiny by releasing the controversial list on the same day as the high-profile Jian Ghomeshi verdict and on the eve of Easter.
“They use these kinds of opportunities when there’s another big news story or when there’s a long weekend,” said NDP Leader Andrea Horwath, who earned $158,157 plus $312.75 in taxable benefits.
Wynne denied there was any effort to downplay the list, although her government had until next Thursday — the end of its fiscal year — to release it. “We had no idea when the Ghomeshi hearings were going to be,” the premier told reporters at Danforth Tech.
The exclusion of Hydro One’s thousands of employees is a “glaring omission,” from the sunshine list, said Progressive Conservative finance critic Vic Fedeli (Nipissing), who earned the base salary of $116,550 for MPPs plus $240.69 in taxable benefits.
“Although we still own 85 per cent of Hydro One, the people of Ontario now have no access to the knowledge of what the salaries are.”
Horwath said taxpayers still deserve to know those details as parts of Hydro One are sold off by Wynne to reduce debt and fund public transit expansion. “We will never know how much the increase in salaries that’s occurring is going to be impacting our bills.”
Wynne said there is no plan to change the general threshold of the sunshine list.
“Is $100,000 a lot of money? I think it is . . . I think it is still relevant.”
The list is peppered with examples that will interest taxpayers, including $587,225.40 and $20,062.04 in taxable benefits to Donna Quan, who left as executive director of the Toronto District School Board after a turbulent tenure. About half the money was for unused vacation days. She could not be reached for comment.
Ironically, Wynne’s chief of staff and principal secretary, Andrew Bevan, earned about $65,000 more than his boss with a salary of $274,058.98 and taxable benefits of $484.11.
Toronto Police Const. Abdulhameed Virani, who is prolific in “paid duty” assignments like watching construction sites, made $242,524.33 plus $839.30 in taxable benefits. That’s just slightly less than new police Chief Mark Saunders at $286,265.74 and taxable benefits of $6,292.36.
Virani was of 17 Toronto officers who bested the $200,000 mark, often earning more than their superiors.
Top earners for the city included TTC chief executive Andy Byford ($355,406 salary and $14,517.21in taxable benefits) and interim Toronto Community Housing CEO Greg Spearn ($321,753.74 and $8,632.32).
Multi-millionaire Toronto Mayor John Tory earned $181,954.15 plus $1,335.92 in taxable benefits. The late councillor Rob Ford made $108,042.72 plus $807.92 in taxable benefits. With files from Louise Brown and Jennifer Pagliaro
“We believe in letting people judge for themselves. We actually know that transparency will cause political problems, sometimes.”
DEB MATTHEWS
TREASURY BOARD PRESIDENT