Five employees at Ontario Power Generation are in the top 10 earners on the province’s so-called sunshine list for 2023, with the province’s highest salary nearing $2 million.
The annual sunshine list documents public sector employees with salaries over $100,000. In this year’s edition, there are 300,570 names, more than 30,000 higher than last year.
Kenneth Hartwick, CEO of the electricity Crown corporation, is in the top spot again with a salary of $1.93 million.
Two other executives at the organization — chief strategy officer Dominique Miniere and chief projects officer Michael Martelli — made nearly $1.2 million and nearly $1 million, respectively.
You can find a list of the top 100 earners below.
The presidents and CEOs of the Hospital for Sick Children and the University Health Network are also in the top 10, earning around $850,000 each. So is Phil Verster, who is president and CEO of the provincial transit agency, Metrolinx, with a $838,097 salary.
Caroline Mulroney, president of the Treasury Board, highlighted other high growth areas in a release.
“The largest year-over-year increases were in the hospitals, municipalities and services, and post-secondary sectors, which together represented approximately 80 per cent of the growth of the list,” she said.
The list shows 17 professors or associate professors at the University of Toronto had earnings of $500,000 or more.
A statement from a University of Toronto spokesperson said the school competes with top universities and private-sector employers around the world for faculty members.
“This occasionally results in salaries above the usual range for a small number of faculty members.”
Five employees at Ontario Power Generation are among the top 10 spots of the annual sunshine list for 2023. (Cole Burston/The Canadian Press)
Premier Doug Ford earned $208,974 last year. His chief of staff, Patrick Sackville, earned $324,675.
Matthew Anderson, CEO of Ontario Health, a provincial agency the Ford government created in 2019, earned $821,000. Meanwhile the public servant leading the Ministry of Health, deputy minister Catherine Zahn, earned $477,360, and Health Minister Sylvia Jones, $165,851.
There are more than 25,000 registered nurses on the list, including seven who earned more than $300,000 last year.
Chief Justice Sharon Nicklas, who was appointed to the top post in the province’s judiciary last May, earned $388,960.
The police chiefs of Thunder Bay, Daniel Taddeo, ($376,428) and Hamilton, Francis Bergen, ($374,492) were paid more last year than OPP Commissioner Thomas Carrique ($373,472). Taddeo retired in April 2023.
Toronto police Chief Myron Demkiw, who took over the post in late 2022, earned $353,411.
Organizations that receive provincial government funding are also required to disclose salaries for the sunshine list, so it includes top earners at some registered charities.
The chief executive of the True Patriot Love Foundation, Nicholas Booth, earned $421,149. The foundation funds support programs for veterans and military families.
The president and CEO of the Canadian Red Cross Society, Conrad Sauve, earned $412,970, while the YMCA of Greater Toronto’s chief executive, Medhat Mahdy, earned $394,057.
Salaries of other key Ontario public figures include:
$826,539 for Ontario Pension Board CEO Mark Fuller.
$709,581 for Ontario Lottery and Gaming Association president & CEO Alfred Hannay.
$601,376 for Registered Nurses Association of Ontario CEO Doris Grinspun.
$596,392 for Dean of Ivey Business School, Western University, Sharon Hodgson.
$563,291 for LCBO president & CEO George Soleas.
$546,053 for Dean of the Faculty of Health Science, Queen’s University, Jane Philpott.
$533,112 for Royal Ontario Museum president & CEO Joshua Basseches.
$486,192 for University of Toronto president Meric Gertler.
$464,148 for Chief Medical Officer of Health Dr. Kieran Moore.
$455,091 for Chief Coroner Dr. Dirk Huyer.
$404,003 Art Gallery of Ontario director and CEO Stephan Jost.
$395,974 for former auditor general Bonnie Lysyk.
Adjusting sunshine list threshold
The sunshine list has been around for almost 30 years, always set at six figures and up.
At Queen’s Park on Thursday, some members of provincial Parliament faced questions on whether the $100,000 starting point should be adjusted.
Green Party of Ontario Leader Mike Schreiner said it should be pegged to the rate of inflation, but others disagreed.
“I think that people think that $100,000 is still a lot of money, especially in an affordability crisis,” said NDP MPP Catherine Fife, who’s also the finance critic.
Government House Leader Paul Calandra said the government has no plans at this time to change the threshold on the sunshine list.
“I think it’s an important document that serves the people well in highlighting the salaries of our public employees.”
The Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act, enacted by former Progressive Conservative premier Mike Harris in 1996, compels organizations that receive public funding from the province to report the names, positions and pay of people who make more than $100,000.
The interactive chart below shows the top 100 earners on the list, based on both salary and benefits.
Search the complete Sunshine List for yourself here.
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
