We Get Layoffs and Higher Taxes
Posted by John Malloy on 04/04/2009
By LINDA LEATHERDALE
While tens of thousands lost jobs last year, with families suffering layoffs now facing even higher taxes thanks to a bonehead move by Premier Dalton McGuinty to harmonize the hated GST with Ontario’s 8% PST – the ranks of government workers joining the elusive $100,000 a year club climbed by 26% last year.
In total, a whopping 53,500 public servants earned more than $100,000 in 2008 – 11,000 more than 2007, while the new Socialist Republic of Ontario went from the strongest economic engine in Confederation to a pathetic have-not province, with deficits to hit a record $85 billion by 2013 – making Bob Rae’s big-spending NDP look fiscally sound.
Ontario’s Sunshine List also exposes the piggies at the tax trough in crown agencies, hospitals, energy companies, colleges and universities, etc. And if you’re not hot under the collar yet, this surely will fry the hair on the back of your neck.
While our obscene electricity bills will jump even higher when the 13% harmonized tax hits in July 2010 – the head of the Ontario Power Generation is laughing all the way to the bank. OPG CEO Jim Hankinson was the highest paid civil servant in 2008 raking in a cool $2.5 million. But filings with the Ontario Securities Commission shows he actually earned more than what the Sunshine List reports. While families struggle to pay skyrocketing hydro bills, Hankinson enjoyed total compensation of $3.5 million in 2008.
Other hydro brass were also rolling in the dough. OPG v-p Pierre Charlebois got a cool $1.4 million, while Hydro One CEO Laura Formusa took home $926,000. And to think, you and I are still paying billions in a debt retirement tax, plus GST, for the old stranded debt of Ontario Hydro, before the idiots busted it up into pieces to end up paying fat-cat salaries to new layers of hydro brass. It stinks.
The second highest pay goes to Michael Nobrega, CEO of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS) who took home a cool $1.9 million. Even though the giant pension fund lost $8 billion last year, five other OMERS executive were paid anywhere from $705,000 to $839,000.
And if that isn’t enough, while we face skyrocketing property tax bills, almost 50 employees at the Municipal Property Assessment Corporation (MPAC) which is responsible for administering the ill-fated and unfair MVA (Market Value Assessment) system, also made it onto the Sunshine List.
Meanwhile, over-taxed Ontarians face even higher taxes as McGuinty digs his way into the biggest hole in history, with record deficit spending of $56.8 billion over the next seven years – while he tries to spend his way out of recession (or should I say depression), a move that backfired on Bob Rae…
lindaleatherdale.com
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John Malloy on 04/04/2009. Filed under
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