On Friday the annual sunshine list of all of the public-sector employees making over $100,000 in Ontario was released.  The list caused the usual feeding frenzy throughout media circles as they plucked the most interesting and high-paying of the lot.

However, what is more important than focusing on those few top execs paid over a million dollars is the overall monstrous and unsustainable size of the public sector today at large.  Despite the thousands of Hydro One employees no longer disclosed on the list the past two years (since the Liberals began selling the profitable asset off), the number of public-sector employees on the sunshine list jumped from 115,431 in last year's list to 123,410 this year.  And next year that number will undoubtedly rise even more drastically as wage freezes are lifted and the Liberals look to buy the continued allegiance of the glutinous public-sector unions and members.

Recently retired Canadian Press reporter Keith Leslie pointed out this bloating of public-sector salaries in a tweet: "22,311 Ontario public sector workers made $144K or more in 2016, equivalent to $100K in 1996 when 4,576 made first Sunshine list."  It would also be fair to say that with many underlings now cracking into the list that the public sector has generally benefited from salary increases in the past two decades that far exceed that of the private sector or inflation.

In the most recent data (2011) from Statistics Canada I could find on the Ontario public sector, there were 1,330,805 people employed by the three levels of government and $74.4 billion spent on their wages and salaries.  Since then, public sector employment has only increased, and I'd hazard a guess, ravenously eats up more of the province's revenues (I'll get back to the reader on the numbers if/when I find them).

But this should surprise no one.  When public unions in Ontario spend 94 per cent of all third-party advertising in the last three elections ($15 million) primarily attacking the Ontario Progressive Conservatives, essentially playing kingmaker, the trend towards a more bloated government bureaucracy and exorbitant wages and salaries is the inevitable consequence.

And now this unsustainable trend is leading to its inevitable conclusion.  The province of Ontario has a debt of about $317 billion and is the most indebted sub-sovereign borrower in the world, yet the Wynne government still thinks we can afford to spend another $130 billion in transportation projects.  Then there's the scheme to sell off Hydro One to make a quick buck to artificially balance the books just before an election, only to have no real solution to stay out of red ink in subsequent years, especially after selling off another revenue-generating asset and increasing the debt load by re-amortizing debt on hydro projects for temporary relief.

So when King Midas can no longer pretend there's not a looming tsunami of debt about to crash down on the province do you think average Ontarians are going to still grind their teeth once a year at a lunchroom supervisor making $111,949.67?  Do you really think that job will remain when reality sets in?

Perhaps it's time public-sector employees stopped asking what more their province can do for them, but rather what they can do for their province.  More likely than not however, their greed will end up with many of them jobless and pension-less as the ponzi schemes unravel.

Written by Graeme C. Gordon