Ottawa Hospital CEO, departed city manager among top earners on Sunshine List
Cameron Love earned more than $647K in 2022, Steve Kanellakos banked $357K
Health-care executives and university leaders were among the city's highest-paid provincial public servants in 2022, with The Ottawa Hospital's CEO Cameron Love topping the list with a salary of $647,124 — $23,607 more than he earned in the previous year.
The second-highest earner was Duncan Stewart, executive vice-president of the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute, who was paid a salary of $522,501 last year. Meanwhile, the dean of the University of Ottawa's faculty of medicine, Dr. Bernard Jasmin, made $443,142, more than the university's president Jacques Frémont whose salary was $399,616.
The Ontario government released its annual Public Sector Salary Disclosure list for 2022, revealing the salaries and taxable benefits of all public sector employees with significant funding from the provincial government. (Salary figures in this story do not include additional benefits.)
Leaders at Hôpital Montfort, the Ottawa Heart Institute, the Eastern Ontario Health Unit, Eastern Ontario Regional Laboratory Association, The Royal Ottawa Mental Health Centre, Queensway Carleton Hospital, Bruyère, CHEO and Carleton University earned more than $350,000 last year.
Kanellakos, Bell top earners at city
As usual, the highest-paid employee at the municipality was the city manager. Steve Kanellakos made $357,113 in 2022, about $13,600 less than the previous year due at least in part because he quit suddenly at the end of November before the release of the damning LRT public inquiry report.
More than 5,800 city employees — 28 per cent of the city's 20,000 employees — are on the 2022 list, with 48 per cent being first responders: 1,657 Ottawa Police Service staff; 851 fire fighters and 309 paramedics.
The second-highest-paid city employee last year was deputy police chief Steve Bell, who was interim chief during a tumultuous year for the police service. That boost in job title, plus the overtime Bell must have worked related to the convoy protests and the Emergencies Act inquiry, likely contributed to his $25,000 jump in salary in 2022, which clocked in at $333,037 in 2022.
Oddly, the salaries for executives of Hydro Ottawa, which is wholly owned by the city, are not including on the Sunshine List, so-called because it supposedly sheds light on what public servants are made. However, Hydro Ottawa's CEO Bryce Conrad was paid more than $400,000 in 2021, according to the utility's 2021 annual report — the last one publicly available.
Invest Ottawa CEO outearned Etches
The list also includes some Ottawa organizations we don't often examine.
Invest Ottawa, the city's economic investment arm, has 24 employees on the Sunshine List. Its CEO, Michael Tremblay, made $336,616 last year. If he was a city employee, he would have been the second-highest paid worker at the city, making more than both Medical Officer of Health Dr. Vera Etches and CHEO CEO Alex Munter.
When the so-called Sunshine List was launched by the provincial government in 1996, it did not index the list to inflation. If it had done so, the base threshold for salary disclosure would be $165,113.64, according to a memo sent out by Ottawa city staff Friday afternoon.
The salaries listed for 2022 also include one-time payments such as vacation or banked overtime cash outs, as well as retroactive pay increases. According to the city memo, the total number of municipal employees on the list, excluding first responders, is 4,150, 37 per cent of whom had a base salary of less than $100,000.
Ottawa's top salary earners by sector
Hospitals
- Ottawa Hospital president Cameron Love: $647,124.00
- Ottawa Hospital Research Institute executive VP Duncan Stewart: $522,501.80
- Hôpital Montfort President and CEO Bernard Leduc: $437,699.16
- University of Ottawa Heart Institute president Thierry Mesana: $430,212.80
- Eastern Ontario Health Unit Medical Officer of Health Dr. Paul Roumeliotis: $415,720.66
Universities and colleges
- University of Ottawa dean of the faculty of medicine Dr. Bernard Jasmin: $443,142.00
- University of Ottawa president Jacques Frémont: $399,616.08
- Carleton University president and vice-chancellor Benoit-Antoine Bacon: $394,490.43
- University of Ottawa dean of the Telfer School of Management Stéphane Brutus: $369,620.04
- Algonquin College president Claude Brulé: $337,500.12
City of Ottawa
- Former city manager Steve Kanellakos: $357,113.43
- Deputy Police Chief Steve Bell: $333,037.36
- Medical Officer of Health Dr. Vera Etches: $330,739.66
- GM of transit Renée Amilcar: $330,664.80
- GM of recreation, cultural and facility services Dan Chenier: $299,307.63
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