Sunshine List: These were Ontario’s highest-paid public sector employees in 2025
On a Friday morning, Ontario released its sunshine list of all public sector employees who earned more than $100, 000 in 2025, revealing more than 400, 000 names — a seven per cent increase from one year prior.
What does the Sunshine List show, and who topped it?
The public disclosure names positions and salaries for every public sector employee earning at least $100, 000 in the previous calendar year. Ontario Power Generation President Ken Hartwick was once again the highest paid Ontario civil servant, bringing in $1, 907, 408 in 2025. OPG CEO Nicolle Butcher was second with $1, 596, 218, and OPG Chief Nuclear Officer Steve Gregoris earned $1, 092, 854. 84. In fact, the five highest paid civil servants in Ontario and seven of the top 10 last year were all employees of Ontario Power Generation.
Why did the sunshine list grow, and which organizations drove the increase?
The list expanded by seven per cent compared with the previous year. President of the Treasury Board Caroline Mulroney said that “retroactive payments, collective bargaining outcomes and an additional pay period for multiple organizations were all unique factors contributing to salary increases in 2025. ” She added that more than 50 per cent of the growth in the list was “driven by municipalities. ” Mulroney also pointed out that more than 50 per cent of list is “comprised of public service organizations like school boards, hospitals and public boards of health, which in large part is comprised of nurses and teachers. ” The sunshine list therefore reflects both high executive pay at certain Crown agencies and broad growth across municipal and frontline public-service payrolls.
How long has this practice been in place, and what context does it provide?
Ontario has been releasing the names, positions and salaries of all public sector employees earning at least $100, 000 in the previous calendar year since 1996. The cutoff has not been adjusted for inflation; a worker earning $100, 000 in 1996 would earn approximately $188, 000 today when inflation is taken into account. That unchanged threshold, combined with the factors Mulroney identified, helps explain why the sunshine list has grown to include more than 400, 000 people.
The release makes visible both concentrated high salaries at a handful of agencies and widespread increases affecting school boards, hospitals and municipal payrolls. It also underscores the ongoing policy choice to publish detailed pay data for transparency while retaining the original nominal threshold set in 1996.
Back on that Friday morning, the numbers landed as both a ledger and a spotlight: executive totals at Ontario Power Generation, a swelling municipal presence and the steady presence of nurses and teachers across the list. The disclosure continues to invite questions about wage pressure, bargaining outcomes and the meaning of a threshold that has not been adjusted for inflation — even as it delivers the basic transparency the province has upheld for decades.
