What Other Provinces Do
Several provinces in Canada have some form of salary disclosure or public sector compensation transparency, though the rules differ widely. Some require disclosure beyond base salary, others include taxable benefits or overtime, and many have different thresholds or exemptions.
Thresholds & Coverage
Ontario’s Sunshine List uses a fixed threshold of $100,000 (income + taxable benefits) for disclosure. Other provinces may set different thresholds or allow indexing of that threshold to inflation. For example, in Alberta, the threshold is $159,833, and they include taxable benefits and also non-monetary benefits. These differences affect how many people are listed and the visibility of public sector wage trends.
Data Transparency & Accessibility
Besides the legal requirements, some provinces provide data in more accessible formats than others. Interactive search tools, downloadable datasets, visualizations, and detailed metadata (what is a “benefit,” what is included or excluded) make a big difference. Ontario has good raw data, but some websites lack interactivity compared to others.
Public Sentiment & Political Pressure
In provinces with indexed thresholds or regular updates, there’s often less controversy. Where thresholds are static, debates arise over fairness, inflation, and what “high pay” really means. Ontario’s static $100,000 threshold has been a point of contention especially in recent years (see related articles).
What Ontario Could Learn
From other provinces, Ontario could borrow policies like inflation adjustments to thresholds, including more transparent breakdowns of compensation (e.g., benefits vs. salary), or even more frequent updates and user‐friendly data formats. Better metadata and inclusion of more job categories can also help.
Why It Matters for You
These differences aren’t just bureaucracy. They affect what you see when you search names, how “top earners” are defined, and whether comparisons across provinces are fair. If you move provinces or review national news, knowing these differences helps you interpret the numbers correctly.