Toronto, ON: The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on the Ontario government reign in the bureaucracy after the provincial sunshine list showed the number of government employees making $100,000 or more grew by 38,536.

“Many Ontario taxpayers have seen their pay cut or businesses closed, but meanwhile government employees were busy getting raises,” said Ontario CTF Director Jay Goldberg. “As we’ve seen throughout the pandemic, we’re clearly not all in this together.”

The number of people on the province’s sunshine list of government employees making over $100,000 increased to over 244,000 last year. Government employees, on average, get paid 10 per cent more than their private sector counterparts.

Four of the top sunshine list spots were occupied by senior figures at Ontario Power Generation. CEO Kenneth Hartwick received $1.6 million in salary in 2021, up by nearly a third from 2020.

The number of teachers on the sunshine list also more than doubled to 65,581.

Ontario’s debt is over $440 billion while this year’s deficit is projected to be $13.1 billion.

“Ontario is the most indebted sub-national government in the entire world,” said Goldberg. “It’s time for the government to start acting like it and that means reducing the size and cost of the bureaucracy.”