TORONTO -- Executives in Ontario's electricity and university sectors topped the annual list of public sector employees paid over $100,000 in 2014.
Ontario Power Generation CEO Tom Mitchell was first on the so-called sunshine list again last year, with $1.55 million in salary and benefits, followed by former OPG vice-president Donn Hanbidge at $1.2 million.
There are about 12,500 employees from OPG, Hydro One and their subsidiaries on the 2014 list, up by nearly 1,000 over 2013, when the auditor general warned those salaries were driving up electricity rates.
Amit Chakma, president and vice-chancellor at the University of Western Ontario, was third at $967,000 in total compensation, with University of Toronto CEO William Moriarty fourth on the list at $939,000.
There are more than 100 people at the Toronto Organizing Committee for the 2015 Pan Am Games making over $100,000, including former CEO Ian Troop at $497,000.
Premier Kathleen Wynne was paid just over $209,00 last year, up about $10,000 from 2013, when she was premier for only 10-and-a-half months.
Other names on the sunshine list include:
- Hydro One CEO Carmine Marcello at $745,000
- Ontario Pension Board president and CEO Mark Fuller at $636,00
- Thomas Marinelli, acting president and CEO of Ontario Lottery and Gaming at $564,000
- Infrastructure Ontario president and CEO Bert Clark at $455,000
The six-volume report of big public sector earners, which includes nurses, teachers, police and firefighters in addition to civil servants, grew by over 13,600 from 2013 to 111,438.
There have been calls to raise the $100,000 threshold, which was first set when the sunshine list was created in 1996, but the opposition parties say that's still a lot of money for most Ontarians. If indexed to inflation, the income threshold for the sunshine list would be about $145,000.
