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I would love to know what share of Canadian taxes go towards the salaries of the huge bloated civil servant bureaucracy. Since civil servant salaries are posted on-line, I saw that a detective in a town about 40 minutes north of Toronto was drawing a three-figure salary. There are probably on average zero murders a year in that town, so what is that detective doing that warrants a three-figure salary? I doubt if any detectives in the U.S. are making three figures. That's just one example. I also think Canadian grade school teachers are way over-paid. Instead of free enterprise the Canadian economy has its government workers as the pillar of it's economy in my opinion.
So the anecdotal salary of one detective is supposed to represent the overall inefficiency of Canada's economy? I can't imagine how any educated adult citizen could even construct such an argument, because the logical errors in this post are just astounding.
The monetary exchange rate can also play a factor in cost.
I just spent a long weekend in the USA, the $300 US i brought along cost me $406 Canadian to acquire.
So the anecdotal salary of one detective is supposed to represent the overall inefficiency of Canada's economy? I can't imagine how any educated adult citizen could even construct such an argument, because the logical errors in this post are just astounding.
You're right.
"The Canadian government spends about $46 billion a year on personnel and compensation costs,its biggest single operating costs. Treasury Board President Tony Clement has vowed to bring this in line with the private sector to make it more “affordable and reasonable.”
That's just the federal government. Then, there is provincial and county and city government.
In Ontario, a total of 111, 438 public sector workers in Ontario were paid more than $100,000. This was released in the 2015 Sunshine Report---"The six-volume report of big public sector earners, which includes nurses, teachers, police and firefighters in addition to civil servants, grew by over 13,600 from 2013. The government said most of the growth — 38 per cent, or 5,114 individuals —came from police and firefighters."
Government workers in Canada are making more than in the private sector. Like I said, it's the pillar of the Canadian economy, and Canadians will be paying those fat pension for all those over-paid bureaucrats forever. This is what bothers me about Canadians--you're like happy to be ripped off. You can get lots of good teachers and police officers without paying them six figure salaries.
Three outrageous examples, some top earners (and they are not anecdotal, they are from the Sunshine Report.)
Bill Blair, Toronto chief of police: $334,291.
City librarian Jane Pyper: $228,618
Elzbieta Rozak, registered nurse $285,922.
I mean, come on! A librarian who makes nearly a quarter of a million dollars, oh, that's a real stressful job checking books out. These salaries are way over the top.
The city librarian is not a regular librarian. The city librarian is the director of the Toronto public library system, who is in charge one of the busiest library systems in the world and a 180 million dollar budget.
We went through this before ellemint, most people on the sunshine list are doctors, professors, engineers etc.
"The Canadian government spends about $46 billion a year on personnel and compensation costs,its biggest single operating costs. Treasury Board President Tony Clement has vowed to bring this in line with the private sector to make it more “affordable and reasonable.”
That's just the federal government. Then, there is provincial and county and city government.
In Ontario, a total of 111, 438 public sector workers in Ontario were paid more than $100,000. This was released in the 2015 Sunshine Report---"The six-volume report of big public sector earners, which includes nurses, teachers, police and firefighters in addition to civil servants, grew by over 13,600 from 2013. The government said most of the growth — 38 per cent, or 5,114 individuals —came from police and firefighters."
Government workers in Canada are making more than in the private sector. Like I said, it's the pillar of the Canadian economy, and Canadians will be paying those fat pension for all those over-paid bureaucrats forever. This is what bothers me about Canadians--you're like happy to be ripped off. You can get lots of good teachers and police officers without paying them six figure salaries.
Three outrageous examples, some top earners (and they are not anecdotal, they are from the Sunshine Report.)
Bill Blair, Toronto chief of police: $334,291.
City librarian Jane Pyper: $228,618
Elzbieta Rozak, registered nurse $285,922.
I mean, come on! A librarian who makes nearly a quarter of a million dollars, oh, that's a real stressful job checking books out. These salaries are way over the top.
FYI, Jane Pyper doesn't "check out books" ... She was the president and chief of the entire Toronto Public Library System which has 100 local branches and $200 million in annual operating budget. The TPL is the largest neighborhood library system in the world, and has the highest number of visitors and circulation among all urban library systems in North America. I think most would agree that someone managing such a large scale operation would deserve a $200,000 + salary, which is an EXTREMELY common compensation in other metropolitan cities around the world. I can assure you that the chief librarians in cities like NYC, SF, and London easily make 6-figure comps.
Police chief making $200-300k is somehow outrageous in Canada? Hmmm, let me see...
Chicago Police Commissioner Gary McCarthy currently makes $260,000 USD ($345,000 CAD)
LA Police Chief Charlie Beck made $297,000 USD ($400,000 CAD) in 2014.
Seattle Police Chief Kathleen O'Toole made $250,000 ($332,392 CAD) in 2014.
San Francisco Police Chief Greg Suhr made $321,577 ($430,000 CAD) in 2014.
And I am quite sure all of the men and women above have contributed more to our country and cities than you ever will, sitting in your living room comfortably criticizing this and that.
Let me tell you what you did there: you selectively picked some headline topics off a quick google search, and picked only the highest ranking officials in each government department to support your argument. What I want to know is - what does the average low-level civil servant make? The entry-level auditor? The traffic police on the street? The 25-year old fire fighter?
I could very well use the same methodology and pick the highest ranking people in the private sector - CEO of Goldman Sachs, Scotiabank, RBC, JPMorgan, Google. In fact I don't even need to go that high - a low-level manager or associate or stock trader at Goldman or JPMorgan in New York would make 3x to 4x more than your tenured Toronto police officer patrolling the streets for the past 20 years. I know because I've worked at one of those banks before and could easily pull in $100k to $150k in my first year right out of college.
You say civil servant pay is outrageous in Canada? You know what is outrageous - this is outrageous: the total compensation statements of 4 Wall Street executives who received federal tax-payer bail-out money right after the 2008 financial crisis - the Federal Government spent over $400 billion of our hard-earned tax money on these banks and this is what each CEO got to take home while the rest of the country was in deep s*** economic recession:
Joseph Cassano: CEO AIG Financial - $280,000,000 USD (2008)
Vikram Pandit: CEO Citi Group - $10,800,000 USD (2009)
Ken Lewis: CEO Bank of America - $145,000,000 USD (2009)
John Thain: CEO Merill Lynch - $83,000,000 USD (2009)
Compared to these big shots receiving bail out money from the Fed, our city police commissioners and civil servants literally make PEANUTS.
Last edited by bostonkid123; 08-26-2015 at 05:28 PM..
A huge problem with the public sector is attracting qualified candidates especially in these upper management roles. Main reason? Low pay. I am glad Average Fruit and Bostonkid broke it down. If you think that is overpaid then I have no idea what planet you live on.
Try to convince someone from the private sector to move over and become part of a public sector management team with any less than what is listed on the "Sunshine list" You cut those salaries any further and you dont stand a chance attracting anything that resembles top notch talent.
I have many friends & family who work in many different governmental bodies and I have to say, I do think they are overpaid for the work effort they put in based on what they've told me. Many of them have admitted the same to me. I know people in Infrastructure Ontario, OSFI, Hydro One, CMHC and various other ministries who easily make six figures with huge benefits (pensions, time off) and ALL (and I mean ALL) of them admitted to me that have a lot of capacity at work. Project timelines seem very extended, people seem to work very fixed hours and not a penny more, and the culture is not one which rewards innovation, client service, or production first.
Now I'm sure there are people who do make good salaries and work hard for it but I have to say out of a sample of 10+ close friends & family of mine, none of them seem to put much of an effort in compared to the private sector. The only exception I can think of is a police officer cousin of mine who seems to have to deal with a lot of stress and danger on the job. But generally speaking, most seem to gravitate to the government because they don't want to work hard, want good benefits, and want to focus on other things in life (which is not necessarily bad).
I don't think the issue is so much with upper management roles because the private sector pays much more at the highest levels, it seems to be much more with the middle layers. Many of the stories about laziness on the job that I've heard over the years actually p$ss me off to be honest. Even though I've never worked for the government or a government-related entity, and probably never will, I do find the government generally to be a very inefficient entity and a drain on this country's resources and productivity. Even just dealing with any government-type entity in the financial services world is unbelievably slow and annoying. I would like to see either some of these salaries/benefits scaled back more in line with their output, a more efficient culture put in place or even more privatization in certain areas. I do think there is plenty of opportunity here.
Last edited by johnathanc; 08-27-2015 at 07:58 AM..
I don't know if it's the case in those examples, but booster dollars often contribute to salaries as well (i.e. the salaries aren't all coming from public funds).
I have many friends & family who work in many different governmental bodies and I have to say, I do think they are overpaid for the work effort they put in based on what they've told me. Many of them have admitted the same to me. I know people in Infrastructure Ontario, OSFI, Hydro One, CMHC and various other ministries who easily make six figures with huge benefits (pensions, time off) and ALL (and I mean ALL) of them admitted to me that have a lot of capacity at work. Project timelines seem very extended, people seem to work very fixed hours and not a penny more, and the culture is not one which rewards innovation, client service, or production first.
Now I'm sure there are people who do make good salaries and work hard for it but I have to say out of a sample of 10+ close friends & family of mine, none of them seem to put much of an effort in compared to the private sector. The only exception I can think of is a police officer cousin of mine who seems to have to deal with a lot of stress and danger on the job. But generally speaking, most seem to gravitate to the government because they don't want to work hard, want good benefits, and want to focus on other things in life (which is not necessarily bad).
I don't think the issue is so much with upper management roles because the private sector pays much more at the highest levels, it seems to be much more with the middle layers. Many of the stories about laziness on the job that I've heard over the years actually p$ss me off to be honest. Even though I've never worked for the government or a government-related entity, and probably never will, I do find the government generally to be a very inefficient entity and a drain on this country's resources and productivity. Even just dealing with any government-type entity in the financial services world is unbelievably slow and annoying. I would like to see either some of these salaries/benefits scaled back more in line with their output, a more efficient culture put in place or even more privatization in certain areas. I do think there is plenty of opportunity here.
You are exactly right Jonathan.
The problem with the public sector is we have way too many staff with too little work. So half of the work force are actually working half of the time, with the remaining time doing nothing.
Additionally, job security is a big issue - I mean people have too much of it. It is practically impossible to just fire someone who proves to be inefficient and less qualified once he becomes a permanent employee. Even after years of incompetence, their supervisor cannot let them go - the most he can do is not giving him important work and promotion, but this person will stay and keep making good wages. It is very easy to choose to be lazy within the government because nobody can do anything about it. In the private sector people worry about the jobs and have to do more and do better, in the public sector, one can afford not to give a damn if he chooses to.
I am not saying the whole system doesn't reward hardworkers, it does as these people do get promoted faster. The problem is all the underachievers get to stay and continue wasting taxpayers money, and unlike the private sector, efficiency and cost is never an issue so the managers and directors really have no strong incentives to let people go.
Last edited by botticelli; 08-28-2015 at 02:28 PM..
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She was the president and chief of the entire Toronto Public Library System which has 100 local branches and $200 million in annual operating budget. The TPL is the largest neighborhood library system in the world, and has the highest number of visitors and circulation among all urban library systems in North America. I think most would agree that someone managing such a large scale operation would deserve a $200,000 + salary, which is an EXTREMELY common compensation in other metropolitan cities around the world. I can assure you that the chief librarians in cities like NYC, SF, and London easily make 6-figure comps. 
