Ontario released its 2024 Sunshine List Friday, the annual list that documents public sector employees with salaries of over $100,000, with Ontario Power Generation president and CEO Kenneth Hartwick topping the list again with a salary of just over $2 million.
Employees of the electricity Crown corporation held the top three positions on the list, with six total in the top 10, all earning at least $800,000. Hartwick took top spot last year with a salary of $1.93 million.
Former Metrolinx CEO Phil Verster was fourth on the list, earning about $884,000. He resigned last December.
Three health-care CEOs also cracked the top 10: Kevin Smith of University Health Network ($883,097), Ronald Cohn of Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children ($870,013) and Matthew Anderson of Ontario Health ($833,653).
Just over 377,000 names made the list in 2024, up from 300,570 last year. All salaries on the list add up to slightly more than $50 billion.
Ontario Power Generation accounted for 10,007 names on the list, with those salaries adding up to about $1.68 billion.
You can see the top 100 earners at the bottom of this story.
Other high-paid public employees included some college presidents, with three making over $450,000 last year: Conestoga president John Tibbits ($636,106.70), Humber president Ann Marie Vaughan ($497,880.32) and Seneca president David Agnew ($459,778.83).
Caroline Mulroney, president of the Treasury Board said nearly half of the growth on the list was driven by the school board sector, with teachers contributing to 87 per cent of this increase in a statement Friday.
“Compensation in sectors that saw the largest year-over-year increases can be attributed to across-the-board salary adjustments, retroactive payments made in the 2024 calendar year and the most recent collective bargaining outcomes,” she said.
Premier earned less than 6 people in his office
There are 47 people from the Office of the Premier on the list, six of whom earned more in 2024 than Doug Ford himself ($208,974), including his chief of staff, Patrick Sackville ($328,098).
The salary of the premier and MPPs have been frozen since 2008, though Ford recently signalled that may soon change. Ontario MPPs currently make less than Toronto city councillors, who voted this week to take their first raise since 2006.
Toronto Mayor Olivia Chow, whose salary was not affected by the councillors’ pay-raise vote, earned $225,093 last year.
Toronto Police Chief Myron Demkiew earned $394,228, but was not the highest paid member of the Toronto Police Service. That title went to Chung Wong ($428,232), whom the list identifies as a TPS sergeant. Wong also outearned Demkiw in last year’s list.
York Regional Police Chief James MacSween was the province’s highest paid police chief, with a salary of $415,230.
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.
Adjusted for inflation, $100,000 in 1996, when the list was created, would be equal to about $185,000 today.
At Queen’s Park last year, some MPPs argued the list should be tied to the rate of inflation, but then-government house leader Paul Calandra said there were no plans to make changes.