#sunshine list

From Ottawa Citizen: Ottawa police officer suspended since 2023 makes Ontario's Sunshine List

An Ottawa police officer who was found guilty for assault and assault with a weapon after stepping on a man’s neck and striking him with a baton made Ontario’s Sunshine List this past year despite being suspended with pay since 2023. The 2025 Sunshine List was published on Friday, March 27, and included all the names, positions, salaries and taxable benefits of people who made $100,000 or more while working for entities that received public funding from the Government of Ontario. This included the Ottawa Police Service, Ottawa Public Library, City of Ottawa, Ottawa Fire Services, Ottawa Paramedic Service, school boards, hospitals, non-profits and more.

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I made a list. I called it my sunshine list. Everyday I would write something on it, one good thing. A person, a released song, a good scene of my favourite TV show, a book, a character, a item, a joke someone made, a compliment I got. I wrote it down, when my outfit slapped. This list is full of weird stuff, unnecessary stuff, some may say. Like getting free mango juice after craving mango juice the entire day. Or my suprise, how awesome my new water bottle is. Or a joke my physics teacher made. Or the name of my friends, after realising how awesome they are. Or when I had like a crazy good blueberry. Or that my new doctor isn't as shitty as my old one. Or Lin Manuel Miranda guess staring on B99. Or bonding moments with my sister. Or that super hot girl in my class being super nice to me. Or a new game on my phone.

Sometimes I was thinking, how sad this list must seem to me at the end of the year. Those things aren't world changing, sometimes it was literally just 'breathing'. But I found something, something good in every day. And on some days, I had so many things to put down on that list, that I actually struggles to decide. And when I look back, reading all these things, I remember how freaking good this year was. Of course not everything, but there were at last 365 really good things. And that is a crazy lot. So when I read this list, I wonder what the hell I meant, when I wrote down 'this bellybutton scene' because I have no freaking idea. But I remember really good things, that I would have forgotten if not for this list.

The CEO of Ontario Power Generation was the highest paid public sector employee in the province last year, topping a growing list of those earning $100,000 or more.

The so-called “Sunshine List” released today shows that Jeff Lyash made more than $1.7 million in 2018.

Lyash – who is leaving his job at OPG later this week – saw his salary jump by nearly $200,000 from 2017, when he also topped the list with earnings of more than $1.5 million.

The top ten spots on the list were rounded out by three other Ontario Power Generation executives, a pair of Crown agency heads, three hospital CEOs, and the president of a corporation that manages investments for a university.

Naureen Rizvi says she was disappointed when only four women cracked the top 20 spots on Ontario's annual Sunshine List, even as the province says it's "on track" to close the wage gap.

"I always feel it's not fast enough," Rizvi told CBC Toronto at a Ryerson University event focused on women's economic empowerment.

"I don't accept that it takes 90 years to get to parity."

At her job as the Ontario regional director with Unifor, Rizvi represents hundreds of thousands of unionized employees across a huge range of sectors, and she says there are wage gaps everywhere she looks.

A quick scan of the top of the Sunshine List merely confirms it. At universities, not one woman making a six-figure salary made as much as the top 20 men. At municipalities, only three women were among the best-paid.

Indira Naidoo-Harris, the province's minister for the status of women, says the province is well aware there's more work to do. Within the public service, she said, women make up some 55 per cent of the workforce, but take home about 12 per cent less money than their male counterparts.

🇨🇦 Ontario’s new Sunshine List is out and it now shows over 400,000 public sector employees earning above $100K, revealing another major jump

🇨🇦 Check out who made the list, which sectors saw the biggest growth, and what this new disclosure reveals 👇

Also, TIL, McHappy Day is just a Canadian thing? I’m now wondering if charity fast food days are a Canada-specific thing, because if I think about it, I’ve not seen it anywhere else.

My favourite charity fast food days, roughly in order:

Miracle Treat Day @ Dairy Queen

Smile Cookies @ Tim Hortons

McHappy Day @ McDonalds

Burgers to Beat MS @ A&W

Camp Day @ Tim Hortons

"The federal government does not release an annual 'sunshine list' – a document outlining the name, compensation and often job title of its high-earning employees – unlike almost every province. And the Trudeau government has no plans to change this practice. ... This is despite years of feedback from equity advocates and researchers, who say sunshine laws have helped narrow the gender wage gap, as well as pressure from stakeholder groups concerned about a lack of transparency. Beyond the issue of taxpayer accountability, sunshine laws around the country have revealed inequities in hiring practices, promotion and compensation."

"Other research, such as a study from economists at the University of Toronto that examined the impact of sunshine laws on gender pay imbalances in academia, suggests disclosure leads to reduced inequities. The gender pay gap, in general, has been shrinking over time, and these laws have accounted for about 30 to 40 per cent of the closure since these laws were passed,' said one of the authors, Yosh Halberstam. Universities that were unionized showed the clearest improvement, he added, suggesting progress requires both a mechanism to expose inequities, as well as a framework for staff to advocate for themselves."

"Since January, The Globe has been publishing a series called the Power Gap, which looks at gender imbalances in the modern work force. ... The data revealed how women’s careers are stalling out in mid-level management and how, on average, women made less than comparable male colleagues. But The Globe could not analyze federal employees, including those who work for the RCMP, public health, the Canada Revenue Agency or for federal Crown corporations – such as the Bank of Canada or Via Rail Canada – because the information is not available."

The Globe and Mail, May 17, 2021: "Sunshine lists have helped narrow the gender pay gap, but Ottawa won’t commit to one," by Robyn Doolittle

National Bureau of Economic Research, May 2019, Revised November 2019: Pay Transparency and the Gender Gap by Michael Baker, Yosh Halberstam, Kory Kroft, Alexandre Mas, and Derek Messacar (40 pages, PDF)

Association of Academic Staff University of Alberta (AASUA), 2017: Gaps in Professorial Compensation by Gender, Visible Minority, and Indigenous People at the University of Alberta by Rhonda J. Rosychuk, Yang Liu, Andrew McGee, Paige Lacy, Zubia Mumtaz, and Malinda S. Smith (137 pages, PDF)

This post is dedicated to princess cyd, the film by Stephen Cone. I wept through a lot of this film, I smiled with my hand in my mouth, and I felt completely seen in a way I haven't felt in cinema recently, if ever. I loved the light way fluidity in gender and sexual orientation were treated, and the central relationship between aunt and niece. Beautiful, touching, sincere. An hour and a half very well spent.