'Sunshine list' 2014: Ontario's top public earners list released

Ontario's list of public servants who take home more than $100,000 a year — the so-called Sunshine List — has been released.

The list chronicles every public provincial servant whose paycheque exceeds six figures. This year's list was released to the public in the form of five thick binders, CBC Queen's Park reporter Genevieve Tomney reported.

The heads of large provincial bodies such as Ontario Power Generation and Ontario Hydro often top the list. Tom Mitchell, president and CEO of Ontario Power Generation, topped the list with earnings of $1.71 million last year. Carmine Marcello, the president and CEO of Hydro One, brought in $728,570.

The average salary on the list comes in at $127,433, slightly less than last year.

Overall, the list -- which includes doctors, nurses, teachers, police and firefighters in addition to civil servants -- increased about 11 per cent last year to 97,796 names. That's an 82 per cent increase from 2008, when there were 53,774 names on the list.

However, the government said the average salary on the list was $127,433 last year — a slight decline from the year before — and the number of civil servants on the list grew by less than one per cent in 2013 to 11,349.

According to Tara Talbot, vice-president of human resources of Workopolis says the average public sector salary is about $52,000 per year.

According to Talbot, if the list was adjusted for inflation since 1996, the real benchmark salary should be around $145,000.

The Sunshine List was brought in under the Mike Harris-led Progressive Conservative government in 1996. At the time, Harris said it served as an important check on the public payroll.

The Public Salary Disclosure Act requires organizations that receive public funding from the Province of Ontario to disclose annually the names, positions, salaries and total taxable benefits of employees paid $100,000 or more in a calendar year.

The act applies to organizations such as the Government of Ontario, Crown agencies, municipalities, hospitals, public health boards, school boards, universities, colleges, Hydro One, Ontario Power Generation, and other public sector employers who receive a significant level of funding from the provincial government.

Since then there have been calls to raise the $100,000 salary threshold.

CBC.ca is publishing the entire sunshine list in an online format you can filter and search yourself. Click on the categories at the bottom of this page to search the lists.

Here's the complete sunshine list, broken down into categories:

Organizations with no salaries to disclose