Sunshine List is So Bright it is Blinding
The Ontario Sunshine List was established by the Mike Harris government in 1996. The Harris government was notoriously anti-labour and the list was developed as a way to embarrass public sector employees who earned $100,000 a year, which was a lot more than most of the rest of the population made. At the time, there were 4,500 people on the list.
Thirty years later, the 2026 Sunshine List has over 400,000 names on it. Are that many people making massive salaries now?
Not really.
If inflation is taken into account, the $100,000 salary today is equivalent to a $53,000 salary in 1996. If the minimum salary to be on theSunshine List had gone up with inflation, it would be listing all public sector employees making over $180,000, in 2026. It would be interesting to know how many people would be on that list. I expect it would be a lot more than 4,500, but nowhere near 400,000.
But the way the list is now set up, teachers and nurses, paramedics, firefighters, police officers, just about everyone working in a profession that requires extensive training and education, will appear on the list, once they reach a certain amount of years on the job.
All of this wouldn't matter so much, if we did not live in a society where we measure value through salary. So, while those of us in the private sector are able to keep our income to ourselves, a vast number of public sector employees no longer have that luxury, even if they are not top level managers.
Salary levels should, for the most part, be left to the discretion of the individual to disclose to their relatives and neighbours as they wish, but not to be forced to make it public, in an easy to access database to boot.
It is a level of privacy that is taken away from people, for the simple reason that they chose a profession in the public sector, in our province.
The other aspect of The Sunshine List is that it is available for people to look at purely in order to snoop. It is like a temptation. Do we need to know how much our child's teacher makes? Did we ever ask for that information? But, now that we can find out, we just might have a look.
If the Sunshine List were such a good idea, why not extend it to everyone. Every year in April, our taxable income, Line 150 of our tax returns, will be released on an accessible database for our friends, frenemies and enemies alike, to look at.
I don't think anyone wants that, and it would only cause social harm.
In the past few years we have reported on the number of Sunshine List employees there are in various institutions in the Frontenac News catchment area. We have not provided names and individual salaries for several years, but we noticed that the numbers go up every year in our municipalities, in the school boards, etc.
We have decided not to do that anymore. From now on we will not cover the Sunshine List. For any readers who think we should put that information out there, it is out there, just google Ontario Sunshine list.
One more thing for context. The minimum wage in Ontario in 1996 was $6.85. A full time worker making minimum wage, about $240 or $12,500 a year before taxes, CPP, and EI were deducted. The minimum wage is now $17.60, $616 a week, or $30,800 a year before CPP, EI, and taxes are deducted. $12,500 was not enough to live on in 1996, and $30,800 is not enough to live on in 2026, certainly for someone who has any dependents.
