SUNSHINE LIST: 376 OMAFRA employees earn more than $100,000

Nelson Zandbergen
Farmers Forum

ONTARIO — No surprise, the number of public-sector employees paid six figures in Ontario continued to grow last year. The province’s latest “sunshine list” shows that the number of taxpayer-funded workers collecting $100,000 or more in salary and benefits rose 12.6 % across the board — from 266,948 in 2022 to 300,570 in 2023.

At Ontario’s Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs, employees in the $100K club increased 27 % — from 296 in 2022 to 376 in 2023. At provincial crop insurer Agricorp, six-figure earners were up 17% — from 35 in 2022 to 41 in 2023.

Among the smaller ag-related public employers: Vineland Research Innovation Centre increased from 14 six-figure employees in 2022 to 17 in 2023; the Ontario Soil & Crop Improvement Association declined from 9 in 2022 to 8 in 2023; the Ontario Food Terminal Board increased from three in 2022 to four in 2023; and the Agricultural Adaptation Council increased from one in 2022 to two in 2023. The newly renamed First Nations Agriculture and Financing of Ontario returned with a single employee on the sunshine list in 2023, unchanged from a year earlier, while Farm & Food Care Ontario debuted on the list with one employee. The Farm Products Marketing Commission also posted its first $100K employee in several years.

Four Ontario municipalities reported agricultural staff positions on the sunshine list: Durham Region’s “agricultural and rural affairs manager”; Halton Region’s “agricultural liaison officer”; and individual urban farm managers in Toronto and Hamilton.

Since 1996, all provincially and municipally funded employers — and other crown agencies that fall under provincial auspices — have been required to annually disclose the names and pay of employees making $100,000 or more.

But the list fails to include earnings from pensions. So, add an another 25 percent to salaries on the list to account for those benefits, according to The Fraser Institute.

Five of Ontario’s top-earning bureaucrats work for Ontario Power Generation. They were led by President and CEO Kenneth Hartwick whose $1.925 million salary in 2023 was up 11.5% from 2022.

By comparison, the provincial cabinet minister in charge of Ontario’s Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs portfolio, Lisa Thompson, made a salary of $165,851 last year.