Mayor Tory wants cap on public exec salaries

Torontosun.com
Jan. 24, 2018
By Antonella Artuso

Mayor John Tory wants a cap on salaries in Toronto Hydro's upper management but thinks it's too late to do anything about the current crop of well-compensated executives.

Toronto Hydro CEO Anthony Haines received more than $1 million in salary, bonuses and incentives in 2016.

Other executives earned compensation of between $280,643 and $521,238.

"We can't obviously retroactively change the contracts of people who've been hired before, and I'm not talking about any particular individuals," Tory said Wednesday.

The mayor said he is asking staff to report on a possible upper limit for compensation across the broader municipal public sector, not just Toronto Hydro.

The city should be able to get great talent at a reasonable price, he said.

"It's time that we sort of said, 'fine, we're going to have some stricter rules on that, but they have to apply going forward as opposed to going back,'" Tory said.

The City of Toronto owns Toronto Hydro, which distributes electricity and maintains street and expressway lighting, and city councillors do sit on its board of directors including a mayor's designate.

A spokesperson for Toronto Hydro said it would be inappropriate to comment Wednesday as the matter of management compensation was being discussed at city executive committee.

The highest paid provincial public servant, according to the 2017 Sunshine List, was the head of Ontario Power Generation at $1.2 million a year.

OPG operates a number of power generation facilities including nuclear plants.

That same year, the CEO of Hydro One, which was semi-privatized by the Kathleen Wynne government, was paid $4.4 million in salary and bonuses.