Welcome back to the Inside Ontario blog where every Monday we recap the top stories from around Ontario.
This week’s top stories: Ontario’s “sunshine list” grows by almost one-fifth; a report finds that Toronto has a gridlock problem; Ontario’s retirement homes may come under regulation; the province’s minimum wage rises; and Algoma District has a higher rate of youth pregnancy and sexually transmitted infection than the provincial average.
Last week, the Ontario government revealed that the “sunshine list” grew by about 19 per cent last year (you can view the sunshine list by clicking here). The sunshine list is a public disclosure of the provincial government employees earning more than $100,000 per year. There are now 68,837 employees of the broader public sector (including agencies, boards, and commissions) earning more than $100,000 per year.
The sunshine list was introduced by the Mike Harris Government in 1995, but the $100,000 threshold was never indexed to inflation. Due to inflation, $135,000 today would be similar to the $100,000 threshold introduced in 1995. However, Premier Dalton McGuinty says that he does not plan to change the public disclosure threshold, since $100,000 is still a lot of money to the typical Ontarian family.
Adam Radwanski of the Globe and Mail argued that the sunshine list is counterproductive to controlling wages. Radwanksi says that all public employees earning roughly $100,000 know the exact income of their counterparts, which leads to a cycle of employees competing to match or exceed the salaries of their peers.
Christina Blizzard of the Toronto Sun noted that there are 228 members of the scandal-plagued eHealth Ontario on the sunshine list. Sarah Kramer, the former CEO of eHealth, was paid $517,428 by the provincial government, including her $317,000 severance package.
A study by the Toronto Board of Trade found that Torontonians face the longest commute out of 19 international cities (including Los Angles, a city known around the world for its gridlock). The Board of Trade says that Toronto’s long commutes cost the city $5-billion per year in lost productivity. On average, Torontonians spend 80-minutes completing their daily round-trip commute.
These findings were part of a larger report on the economic competitiveness of Toronto compared to other international city. The report ranked Toronto fourth out of 24 cities on its overall economic competitiveness. Toronto came first for proportion of immigrants, second for labour attractiveness, and in the upper third for the proportion of the population with a university degree.
A bill in the Ontario legislature would introduce licensing and regulation of the province’s retirement homes for the first time. The bill would: create standards of care and safety; mandate that retirement homes create emergency plans; require background checks for all staff members; and give retirement home residents rights (including the right to know the true cost of their care, and the right to live in an abuse-and neglect-free environment).
Progressive Conservatives criticized the bill for ignoring the need for more long-term care beds. The New Democrats criticized the bill for not requiring sprinkler systems in retirement homes.
Ontario’s minimum wage increased from $9.50 to $10.25 per hour last week. This is the seventh increase in the minimum wage by the McGuinty Government (minimum wage was $6.85 when the McGuinty Government took office).
Jim Stanford, an economist with the Canadian Autoworkers Union, praised the McGuinty Government for increasing the minimum wage by 28 per cent since it took office. He argues that this reverses decades of governments allowing the real purchasing power of the minimum wage to be eroded by inflation. Stanford calculates that the minimum wage is now slightly more generous than it was in 1976 when indexed to inflation.
However, Ontario’s restaurateurs say that the minimum wage increase will raise their costs by $255-million per year when their industry is still recovering from the recession. Servers also worry that their tips will dry-up as their customers will believe that everyone is being paid $10.25 per hour. Those who serve alcohol receive a lower minimum wage (now $9.60 per hour) because they are expected to receive tips.
Last week, a report released by Algoma Public Health found that Algoma District has a higher rate of Chlamydia infection and youth pregnancy than the provincial average. Between 1998 and 2007 the rate of Chlamydia infection (the most common sexually transmitted infection) in Algoma was 212 per 10,000 people compared to the provincial average of 171 per 10,000 people. Also, in Algoma, 34.7 per cent of live births were by mothers between the ages of 15 and 24 compared to the Ontario average of 21 per cent in this age group.
And to learn more about Ontario provincial politics, visit TVO’s Civics 101 microsite. There you will find Queen’s Park This Week, a 30-minute video digest of last week’s sessions of Question Period. You can also watch previous sessions of question period in full at the Question Period Archive.
