The Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act, 1996 requires organizations that receive public funding from the Province of Ontario to make public, by March 31 each year, the names, positions, salaries, and total taxable benefits of employees paid $100,000 or more in the previous calendar year.
The act applies to organizations such as the Government of Ontario, Crown Agencies, Municipalities, Hospitals, Boards of Public Health, School Boards, Universities, Colleges, Ontario Power Generation, and other public sector employers who receive a significant level of funding from the provincial government.
Local organizations in the disclosure include the District of Muskoka. The District of Muskoka’s Sunshine List has been steadily growing. In 2017 there were 32 employees on the list, in 2018 there were 37, in 2019 there were 39, in 2020 there were 62, in 2021 there were 71 and there were 87 employees on the list in 2022.
See the 2022 list compiled below:
The full list for all of Ontario can be found on ontario.ca.
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Brenda Begg says
This is informative. We appreciate their contributions.
But could we please see the number of people in our area who Exist below the poverty line – those who are homeless, rely on our Food Bank, who cannot buy necessary medications, who cannot access mental health support, who must choose between paying their rent (if they have housing) and buying food/meds/clothing etc. There are parents who cannot afford to pay for extra curricular activities. And so on.
I wonder what this ‘List’ is called? Certainly not Sunshine!
Phil Beacock says
100 k. Is not a lot of money these days. The disclosure was put into effect many years ago. Just saying! Have a safe day!
Em Arde says
That anyone still feels the need to publish this list — especially given its very-much-outdated arbitrary threshold — just seems silly. In my opinion, what specific individuals earn should for their employment income not be public information. Sure, the municipality should be accountable for its budget and how it spends it, but there really is no need to publicly share such an analysis down to this level of granularity, one which frankly seems to be a violation of personal privacy.
Erin Jones says
I disagree, Em. These people work for us and we have a right to know how much compensation they receive. This is especially true when the District’s average wage of non-governmental citizens (you know, the ones who pay the taxes that support these salaries) is much, much lower.
Em Arde says
Then why set a threshold at all, why not show every employee’s salaries? And if you own any shares, directly or indirectly, in any publicly traded company, do you also want and expect to see every single employee’s individual, personal salary, by name … since they all work for you? Finally, the subset of governmental administration jobs listed above are, for the most part, specialized … so it seems disingenuous to compare their salaries to the average wage earned over all job types in the general citizenry.
Mac Redden says
These are the guys who charge us the highest water and sewer costs in Ontario.
$2,400/year is typical including the costs shown/hidden on our property taxes.
I guess if you make over $100K that’s peanuts.
For most of us in Muskoka it is not.
The District has blown $620 million!!! on services in Muskoka for 18!! mostly little toy, vastly underutilized white elephant water and sewer plants.
Believe it or not.
For only around 10,000 connections.
They are blowing another $65 million in Huntsville right now.
There is no affordable housing in town with ridiculous services costs like that.
Cost is no object at the District.
Dave Gordon says
In addition to salary it should be clear that the true cost of labour includes salary, benefits, pensions etc and the costs to the employer – example CPP and EI. In reality these folks earn much more than what shows in a salary figure. True costs should always include these considerations.
Erin Jones says
False equivalency, Em. Here’s why: The employees of a manufacturing enterprise, for example, are NOT dependent on the taxpayers for their salaries/wages, but rather, on the success or failure of the enterprise. And, in the case of publicly-held corporations, the top compensations are listed in the corporation’s annual report. If I don’t wish to support that enterprise, I simply do not purchase their products. I cannot do that as a taxpayer supporting a town, district, province, etc. I repeat, the employees of such work directly for us as we are the citizens and the citizens of a jurisdiction own the government overseeing it. You make a clever argument but it is your argument that is “disingenuous”.