The Ontario Sunshine list just dropped in 2024 and here’s who earned the most

A few months into 2024, and last year’s 2023 Ontario Sunshine List is finally out!

The latest Ontario Sunshine List — which covers the exorbitant salaries raked in by the highest-earning public sector employees in the previous calendar year — dropped as predicted to close out the first week of spring, and there are plenty of familiar names and also newcomers on this year’s roundup.

The annual list that discloses salaries for any public service employee paid over $100k per year was brought about in 1996 by former Premier Mike Harris as a means of transparency into the public sector.

The latest list of top earners covers salaries earned in 2023, when over 300,000 employees made the list, up by roughly 34,000 since the year before.

The top earners were once again executives at Ontario Power Generation, with the company paying out each of the top-five highest public salaries in Ontario, and seven of the top 15 positions.

Metrolinx President and CEO Phil Verster once again cracked the top ten, his salary growing considerably since taking the job in 2018. The Metrolinx exec now earns $838,097.41 per year, making him the eighth-highest public salaried employee in the province, despite a pay cut of roughly $86k from a year earlier.

Some of last year’s highest earners have been on the list multiple times, including the aforementioned Ontario Power Generation employees.

While not the highest earners, noteworthy figures include Premier Doug Ford, who took home $208,974 — identical to his salary the year before — and TVO host Steve Paikin, who earned $286,094, a steep decline from the $348,615 he earned a year earlier.

Here are the top 10 highest-paid employees for 2023:

1. Kenneth Hartwick, President of Ontario Power Generation, $1,925,372
2. Dominique Miniere, President, Nuclear, Ontario Power Generation, $1,194,533.69
3. Michael Martelli, Chief Project Officer, Ontario Power Generation, $927,747.99
4. Nicolle Butcher, Chief Operations Officer, Ontario Power Generation, $894,783.33
5. Christopher Ginther, EVP Business Strategy and Commercial Management, $889,925.01
6. Ronald Cohn, President and CEO, the Hospital For Sick Children, $851,414.40
7. Kevin Smith, President and CEO, University Health Network, $844,992.49
8. Phil Verster, President and CEO, Metrolinx, $838,097.41
9. Mark Fuller, President, Ontario Pension Board, $826,539.50
10. Matthew Anderson, President and CEO, Ontario Health, $821,000.22