Number of government workers making $100k nearly matches population of Welland QUEEN’S PARK – At a time of real economic uncertainty in Ontario, when the province is below the national average in private sector growth and more than 183,000 well-paying manufacturing jobs have been lost, the number of government workers making $100,000 or more continues to grow at an alarming rate, said Tim Hudak, MPP for Niagara West-Glanbrook and PC finance critic. The Sunshine List – an annual inventory of government workers who make more than $100,000 a year – was released at Queen’s Park yesterday. Ontario taxpayers, opposition parties and the media alike were shocked to see the list had bloated to 42,549 people in 2007, an increase of 27.2 per cent from the previous year. More alarming still is that the number of people on the Sunshine List has now more than doubled since the McGuinty Liberals took office in 2003. “Members don’t often get to use the word gargantuan in the Ontario Legislature, but the growth of government workers making more than $100,000 per year under the McGuinty government has been nothing short of gargantuan,” Hudak said to the Premier today during question period. The Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act was passed in 1996 under the former Mike Harris PC government. Under the Act, organizations who receive public funding from the provincial government are required to disclose the names, positions, salaries and taxable benefits of employees who crack the six-figure mark. “At a time when some 200,000 families have lost jobs in the manufacturing sector, including CanGro in Niagara, (we have seen) an extraordinary bloat, not in front-line workers, but in high-priced spin doctors making more than $100,000 per year,” Hudak said. “Premier, what direction have you given your ministries to control this excessive growth and those making more than $100,000 per year?”