ONTARIO'S SUNSHINE LIST NEEDS SOME `MOONING'
There is a term of behaviour which has been around since at least Roman times: “Mooning.”
Baring one's butt as an insult to another, after the Romans, seems to have been popularized during the Middle Ages or Dark Ages (roughly from about 470 to 1400 A.D.).
I mention this for two reasons.
The first is simply because many of us fortunately witnessed a total solar eclipse on April 8. Now, how many of us realized that we always see the same side of the moon?
As the moon revolves around the Earth, it rotates so that the same side is always facing the Earth. Consequently during an eclipse the backside (or butt) of the moon faced the sun.
Putting it prosaically, during last week's eclipse the sun was mooned by the moon.
My second reason stems from then-premier (Common Sense) Mike Harris' 1996 introduction — in a fit of populist spite — of what is now termed Ontario's Sunshine List.
Formally called The Ontario Public Sector Salary Disclosure List, it was designed to bring transparency to the growing salaries of Ontario's highest paid publicly funded executives and public servants.
In 1996, the benchmark reportable salary was set at $100,000. That same year, the Sunshine List contained names of 4,494 public officials.
By 2021, the list had 244,390 public sector salaried employees and the latest list contained 300,570 names. The list, of course, does not include many public service retirees whose pensions might exceed $100,000 annually.
When the list had only a few thousand names, local media were prompt in identifying those with high salaries as if in some manner their salaries were spoils ripped from common sense taxpayers' pockets. There was a certain vindictiveness inherent in Harris' list.
On the other hand, to many populists for whom political power matters and its retention is absolutely essential, throwing political bones to fawning followers is a historic form of political manipulation.
Julius Caesar did it in ancient Rome, Donald Trump plays the same card in the United States and Canada's Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is running his own populist clone of Harris' common sense theme.
The Sunshine List strips public servants from all professions of some privacy and holds them to some scorn or abuse for alleged exorbitant salaries paid — for care and feeding of government, hospital, university, teacher and other leeches — from everyday hard-working wage slaves.
Naturally, populist politicians so often contrive this appeal to the masses while devoting efforts to ensure their financial backers are rewarded with government contracts and concessions. It is a pattern of political opportunism that's been around for thousands of years and echoes in our daily media, especially in the U.S.
The Sunshine List is outdated. It serves little purpose beyond window dressing. Do I really care what teachers earn or what professors earn or what the managers and heads of many public service institutions earn? No.
We pay people high salaries for two things — professional skills and responsibility.
Our family doctor diagnosed me with pneumonia last week. I was impressed by his talent and said so. “That's my job,” he replied.
We pay people for their earned and honed professional skills. We pay them because they can apply skill and experience which might otherwise entirely baffle most mortals.
If David Musyj, president and chief executive office of Windsor Regional Hospital, is paid a substantial salary, it is largely because he is worth the money, folks.
How many people realistically could cope with managing a massive medical system that provides essential care?
Windsor's police chief salary is around $258,000. I couldn't cope with the level of daily responsibility of a police chief, even at double the salary. And, for the record, my earnings from writing a column have never exceeded even one single week of my allowance of $20 provided by my darling wife.
If you need a Sunshine List, then make its base more realistic for 2024.