{"id":12189,"date":"2015-10-07T17:38:37","date_gmt":"2015-10-07T21:38:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=12189"},"modified":"2015-10-21T17:48:48","modified_gmt":"2015-10-21T21:48:48","slug":"view-from-queens-park-interesting-debate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/view-from-queens-park-interesting-debate\/","title":{"rendered":"VIEW FROM QUEEN’S PARK: Interesting Debate"},"content":{"rendered":"

An Interesting Debate at Queen’s Park
\nBy Chris Ballard, MPP
\nNewmarket-Aurora<\/strong><\/p>\n

There was an interesting bit of political theatre at Queen\u2019s Park recently when Giles Bisson, NDP MPP for Timmins-James Bay, put forward a private members bill calling on the government to cap top public servant salaries.
\nI found myself voting against the bill, even though I\u2019ve been shocked at the salaries some in public office are paid, and understand the current public mood for reform.
\nBut, I couldn\u2019t vote for Mr. Bisson\u2019s bill for a number of reasons. First among them we are already in the process of doing exactly what Mr. Bisson and the NDP have asked, through Bill 8, An Act to promote public sector and MPP accountability and transparency by enacting the Broader Public Sector Executive Compensation Act, 2014.
\nI share the frustration around compensation for executives in the public sector, and I absolutely believe that Ontarians need a clear rationale as to why people are paid what they\u2019re paid.
\nOur government thinks that every dollar counts, that everybody needs to do their part, and we are as outraged as anyone at some of the examples we have seen where there isn\u2019t a clear rationale.
\nWe agree this issue is one that needs to be addressed. We support the desire of the opposition to take a strong stand. However, we have already done it. We\u2019ve already taken a strong stand when it comes to executive compensation.
\nWe have already passed Bill 8 and we\u2019re implementing it right now.
\nBill 8 expands the Ontario Ombudsman\u2019s role to include municipalities, school boards and publicly funded universities. It requires cabinet ministers, parliamentary assistants, opposition leaders and their respective staff to post expenses online, making Ontario a leader in expense reporting.
\nBill 8 requires the Speaker to post online MPP expense information for out-of-riding travel, hotel accommodations related to that travel, meals and hospitality.
\nBill 8 establishes a patient ombudsman and expanding the Provincial Advocate for Children and Youth\u2019s mandate. Bill 8 gives the government greater oversight over air ambulance providers.
\nBill 8 puts hard caps on executive compensation.
\nThe NDP bill deals only with people who are hitting that maximum of $480,000. Our bill covers all people, all executives with compensation well below that.
\nThe member for Timmins-James Bay goes on about raises to Community Care Access Centres (CCAC) CEOs, yet his bill does not capture them. The bill the NDP voted against \u2013 Bill 8 \u2013 addresses that. The NDP bill does not.
\nAs Deputy Premier Deb Matthews said when she spoke against the proposed Bill, \u201cThe third party has a good bumper sticker here, but it\u2019s bad public policy.\u201d
\nWhen our government passed the Broader Public Sector Accountability Act, it allowed the government to put in place hard caps on executive salaries, including universities and colleges. The restraint applies to designated executives and officeholders who earn $100,000 or more per year at hospitals, universities, colleges, school boards and Ontario\u2019s hydro entities. Our government is the first in Ontario\u2019s history to legislate caps.
\nWe\u2019re taking a thoughtful, evidence-based approach to controlling executive compensation. It is important that we\u2019re thoughtful and that we do our homework. What that means is the caps we implement must be reasonable and allow us to manage public dollars responsibly while continuing to attract good talent.
\nThe plan also includes significant compliance and enforcement measures, which, for example, would require organizations to repay any amount above the compensation frameworks. The frameworks will be fully applicable to existing executives following a three-year transition period.
\nI believe the member\u2019s bill we were debating fell short in a number of ways. First, it was just an utterly blunt instrument. Secondly, it didn\u2019t consider the sector-by-sector issues, the individual-by-individual issues, that the minister is working on to make sure that we can attract the best talent, but also deliver those strong services that our constituents expect.
\nIt also applied only to those folks who are making twice the Premier\u2019s salary today, which is about $440,000. It wouldn\u2019t touch those CCACs that Mr. Bisson so passionately spoke about, and it wouldn\u2019t address a whole series of other executives in the public sector. Our Bill 8, and the work that the minister is doing, covers folks with incomes of $100,000 or more.
\nThe government\u2019s legislation applies immediately to new hires, to those who have changed positions and to all executives after a three-year period. The private member\u2019s bill, in contrast, explicitly stated that the cap would not apply to any salaries established before the act comes into force. In other words, it wouldn\u2019t apply to salaries currently being paid in the broader public sector. So basically, most of the folks in the broader public sector wouldn\u2019t be affected by the proposed NDP bill.
\nThe government\u2019s approach to compensation control realizes that there should be mechanisms in place to ensure accountability and respect for any restraints imposed, and so we have compliance and enforcement measures.
\nThe member only talked about salary in his proposed bill. There is much compensation that goes beyond salary. There are various forms of compensation. The minister is working on that.
\nThe bill didn\u2019t do what the member claimed it would do, and for that reason I stood to vote against it \u2013 and it was defeated.<\/p>\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

An Interesting Debate at Queen’s Park By Chris Ballard, MPP Newmarket-Aurora There was an interesting bit of political theatre at Queen\u2019s Park recently when Giles Bisson, NDP MPP for Timmins-James Bay, put forward a private members bill calling on the government to cap top public servant salaries. I found myself voting against the bill, even […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12189","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-archive"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-3aB","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-02 23:13:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12189","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12189"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12189\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}