Let The Sunshine In!

Cover art for Hair: The American Tribal Love-Rock Musical (Original Broadway Cast Recording), via Genius.com

The musical Hair opened on Broadway around the time I was born, and though I’ve never actually seen it (on stage or on film), I remember the music. When I was a child, we had a stereo (music system) which included a record-player (or turntable, or phonograph), and an 8-track tape player. (We also had a cassette tape player, but that was separate.)

Cassette Tape and 8-track tape, via electrical-contractor.net

While my parents had a fair collection of records, including a bunch of “seventy-eights” (older 10-inch discs, which were thicker and spun at 78rpm, in contrast to the standard 12-inch, 33 1/3 rpm LP), we only had a dozen or so 8-track tapes. Notable among these was a copy of the soundtrack of Hair, by the original Broadway cast, which I listened to quite a lot.

Many people will recognize “Aquarius” and “Let The Sunshine In”, but I only just learned that the best-known version of them was actually a medley known as “Aquarius/Let the Sunshine In”. I also just learned that the full name of the latter in the Hair soundtrack was actually “The Flesh Failures (Let The Sunshine In)”, though I can see why they changed the name in the medley, as they only used the last part of the song, and discarded the lyrics other than “let the sunshine in”.

Which brings me to the Sunshine List.

In 1996, Premier Mike Harris introduced Ontario’s Sunshine List as part of his “Common Sense Revolution” platform. As stated in the the Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act, 1996: “The purpose of this Act is to assure the public disclosure of the salary and benefits paid in respect of employment in the public sector to employees who are paid a salary of $100,000 or more in a year.”

Ok, but why? According to Harris, the list was designed to make “Ontario’s public sector more open and accountable to taxpayers.”

Ok, but how? Could it have been a political tool, designed to stir up outrage at government salaries in order to support policies around reducing the size of government?

If the intent was to provide transparency around government salaries, why was the $100,000 (CAD) threshold selected? And, more importantly, why was it not linked to inflation in some way? A salary of $100,000 in 1996 was generally considered “high”, but the equivalent in 2024 was $181,010. Isn’t it interesting that reporting on the list usually focuses on the the number of people on it? Many articles jump straight to phrases like “revealing more than 375,000 publicly-paid employees...”, which grabs attention and makes it appear as if the situation is utterly out of control. While much less sensational-sounding, the real (inflation-adjusted) number of over 25,000 people is a significant year-over-year increase and could be a genuine cause for concern. Seems bad, but is it? We don’t know, because we usually don’t have enough information or context to understand what the numbers mean.

Would it not have been more effective to include ALL government salaries, and use (inflation-adjusted) salary bands to preserve the privacy of employees under a certain level?

This would have provided transparency to the public, along with some idea of where government resources are being spent, and would allow for reasonable comparisons between groups. This could be very useful, if we had comparable information for non-government employees and a reasonable way to compare apples-to-apples.

But they didn’t do that.

Even then, it’s debatable what this would actually accomplish. Would it highlight the salaries of top-earners? Or generate outrage at “overpaid” government employees? Or, would it be used by some employees to support negotiations for higher salaries?

Should we consider doing things the way that Norway does, and make everyone’s tax returns open to everyone? Interestingly, Finland and Sweden do this as well, as did the US, at one time. THAT would be interesting, though the chances of a policy like that in Canada or the US seem (to me) somewhere between “slim” and “none”.

Or, what if we were to require that all income for all Ontario residents be listed – again, inflation-adjusted salary bands to preserve privacy. Then, we’d be able to do some detailed analysis and make reasonable comparisons between private- and public-sector employees, rather than simply trying to generate outrage.

This, again, is highly unlikely to happen, because most non-union companies will be vehemently against it, while many unions already have clear pay bands and rates.

Either way, it’s unlikely that anyone will touch the current policy, because it appears to be both a political hand-grenade and an effective weapon for all parties.

Maybe, one day, we’ll implement policies which provide real transparency into government hiring practices – something which provides both information and context which can actually be used in a positive way.

Then, we could all put on some sunscreen and let the real sunshine in!

Cheers!