Thunder Bay had 759 City records on Ontario’s 2025 Sunshine List
THUNDER BAY – NEWS – The City of Thunder Bay had 759 disclosure records on Ontario’s 2025 Sunshine List, representing almost $104 million in salary paid to municipal employees who received at least $100,000 during the year.
That is a high number for a city of Thunder Bay’s size. Among a group of comparable Ontario municipalities, Thunder Bay had the largest number of municipal Sunshine List records per 10,000 residents, even after police services were added to cities that report police employees separately.
However, the headline number does not prove that Thunder Bay has 759 senior managers, nor does it prove by itself that City Hall is inefficient. Police officers, firefighters and paramedics account for much of the list. Thunder Bay also employs Superior North EMS staff who serve the wider District of Thunder Bay, while some comparison cities have services delivered by a county, region or separate agency.
The fair conclusion is more careful: Thunder Bay stands out enough to justify detailed questions about overtime, staffing, retroactive payments and wage settlements. The Sunshine List alone cannot answer those questions.
What the Sunshine List Measures
Ontario’s Public Sector Salary Disclosure Act requires covered public-sector employers to report the name, position, salary paid and taxable benefits of employees paid at least $100,000 in a calendar year.
The 2025 disclosure was released on March 27, 2026. It reports pay received during 2025. It is not necessarily the employee’s regular base salary. Overtime, paid duty, acting pay, retroactive adjustments and other payments can increase the reported amount.
The province specifically said that retroactive payments, collective bargaining outcomes and an additional pay period at multiple organizations contributed to salary increases in 2025.
City-Employer Comparison
NetNewsLedger compared the City of Thunder Bay with seven Ontario municipalities that have broadly similar populations or northern service conditions. Population figures are Statistics Canada’s preliminary July 1, 2025 municipal estimates.
| Municipality | 2025 estimated population | City-employer disclosure records | Average disclosed city salary | City disclosed salary payroll |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Thunder Bay | 117,671 | 759 | $136,997 | $104.0 million |
| Greater Sudbury | 188,504 | 807 | $129,699 | $104.7 million |
| Barrie | 174,469 | 817 | $133,419 | $109.0 million |
| Guelph | 160,760 | 673 | $125,726 | $84.6 million |
| Kingston | 149,527 | 415 | $126,690 | $52.6 million |
| Brantford | 123,521 | 540 | $132,864 | $71.7 million |
| Peterborough | 97,834 | 451 | $136,101 | $61.4 million |
| Sault Ste. Marie | 81,182 | 171 | $132,463 | $22.7 million |
Initial result: Thunder Bay ranked third in raw city-employer records, behind Barrie and Greater Sudbury. It had the highest average salary among the disclosed city records in this comparison, narrowly ahead of Peterborough.
Those averages apply only to employees above the $100,000 threshold. They are not the average salaries of all municipal workers. A city with many employees just above the threshold can have a lower disclosed average than a city with fewer but more highly paid workers.
Why the Raw Ranking Is Not Apples to Apples
Employer names are organized differently across Ontario.
Thunder Bay, Barrie, Brantford, Greater Sudbury and Peterborough report police employees inside the city-employer record. Guelph, Kingston and Sault Ste. Marie report their police services as separate employers.
Comparing only the city-employer lines would therefore make Thunder Bay look larger partly because its police officers are included while police officers in some other cities are not.
Adding the separately reported police services produces a more useful, though still imperfect, comparison:
| Municipality | Police records added | Adjusted city plus police records | Records per 10,000 residents |
|---|---|---|---|
| Thunder Bay | Already included | 759 | 64.5 |
| Guelph | 265 | 938 | 58.3 |
| Barrie | Already included | 817 | 46.8 |
| Peterborough | Already included | 451 | 46.1 |
| Brantford | Already included | 540 | 43.7 |
| Kingston | 227 | 642 | 42.9 |
| Greater Sudbury | Already included | 807 | 42.8 |
| Sault Ste. Marie | 148 | 319 | 39.3 |
Adjusted result: Guelph had the largest combined city-and-police count, but Thunder Bay still had the highest count relative to population at 64.5 records per 10,000 residents. That was about 11 per cent above Guelph and approximately 38 per cent above Barrie.
Thunder Bay’s Five-Year Increase
The City’s disclosed count has risen in each of the past four years:
| Disclosure year | City records | Average disclosed salary | Disclosed salary payroll |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 547 | $127,171 | $69.6 million |
| 2022 | 599 | $128,305 | $76.9 million |
| 2023 | 639 | $128,734 | $82.3 million |
| 2024 | 699 | $127,581 | $89.2 million |
| 2025 | 759 | $136,997 | $104.0 million |
From 2021 to 2025, Thunder Bay’s disclosed count increased by 212 records, or 38.8 per cent. The disclosed salary payroll rose by about 49.4 per cent.
The sharpest dollar increase came in 2025, when disclosed salary payroll rose by approximately $14.8 million. That does not necessarily represent a matching increase in permanent base wages because 2025 included unusual retroactive and payroll timing effects across Ontario.
Who Is on Thunder Bay’s List?
The City’s most common disclosed positions show why the list should not be treated as a list of senior executives:
- 146 First Class Constables;
- 123 Firefighters;
- 90 Primary Care Paramedics;
- 23 Police Sergeants;
- 22 Fire Captains; and
- 22 Communication Centre Operators.
The three largest groups alone – First Class Constables, Firefighters and Primary Care Paramedics – accounted for 359 records, or about 47 per cent of the City’s list.
The two largest individual Thunder Bay salary disclosures were Police Chief Darcy Fleury at $318,847.90 and City Manager Jean Claude Collin at $307,297.99. These are salary-paid figures for the calendar year. They should not automatically be read as contractual base salaries.
Superior North EMS Makes Thunder Bay Different
The City of Thunder Bay operates Superior North EMS for the full District of Thunder Bay. The City says the service employs approximately 210 paramedics, including about 115 in the city and 95 in district operations. It operates 18 stations and serves every community and unorganized area in the district.
That matters when dividing Thunder Bay’s disclosure count by the City’s population. Some of the people reported by the City are delivering a regional service to residents outside the municipal boundary.
Other municipalities also have structural differences. Peterborough County, for example, separately reports county and paramedic employees. Regional services, utilities, transit systems and social-service boards can appear under different employer names. No single employer-line comparison completely corrects for these differences.
The $100,000 Threshold Has Lost Much of Its Meaning
Ontario set the disclosure line at $100,000 when the law was created in 1996. The threshold has never been indexed to inflation.
Using Statistics Canada’s annual Consumer Price Index, $100,000 in 1996 had roughly the same purchasing power as about $185,000 in 2025. That does not mean $100,000 is a small salary. It means the list now captures a much wider share of experienced public-sector employees than it did when the law began.
As negotiated wages and overtime rates rise, employees cross a fixed threshold even when their real purchasing power changes much less. For that reason, growth in Sunshine List headcount is not the same thing as growth in management, staffing or service levels.
What the Numbers Say – and What They Do Not Say
The data supports these conclusions:
- Thunder Bay has a high number of municipal disclosures for its population.
- Its average disclosed city salary was the highest in this eight-city comparison.
- The number and value of Thunder Bay disclosures have grown substantially since 2021.
- Police, fire and paramedic workers make up a large share of the local list.
The data does not establish:
- that every listed worker has a base salary above $100,000;
- that the City’s entire payroll is $104 million;
- that Thunder Bay has more managers than its peers;
- that all disclosed pay is funded only by Thunder Bay property taxpayers; or
- that a larger list automatically means poorer value or weaker services.
Questions Voters and Candidates for City Council Should Ask
The Sunshine List is best used as a starting point for public accountability. Council and administration could make the data more useful by publishing a yearly compensation report that answers five questions:
- How much of the disclosed pay was regular base salary, overtime, retroactive pay, paid duty, acting pay or payouts?
- Which departments produced the largest increases, and what operational pressures caused them?
- How many full-time equivalent employees does each service have, and what percentage crossed the threshold?
- What portion of police, fire and paramedic overtime was caused by vacancies, sick leave, minimum staffing rules or major incidents?
- What share of each service is funded by municipal taxes, provincial transfers, user fees or district partners?
Those answers would allow residents to judge whether higher compensation reflects necessary frontline coverage, temporary retroactive payments, chronic vacancies, management growth or avoidable overtime.
Bottom Line
Thunder Bay’s 2025 Sunshine List is large compared with cities of similar size. Even after correcting for police services that are listed separately elsewhere, Thunder Bay had the highest disclosed count per 10,000 residents in this comparison.
That is a legitimate accountability issue, but it is not a verdict. Thunder Bay’s role as the operator of district-wide paramedic services, its public-safety workforce and the province-wide 2025 retroactive payment effects all influence the result.
The next useful step is not simply to count names. It is to require a clear breakdown of base pay, overtime, retroactive payments, staffing levels and funding sources. That would show taxpayers where the money went and whether it delivered the services residents expect.
Methodology
NetNewsLedger used Ontario’s 2025 Public Sector Salary Disclosure and grouped records by the employer names shown in the provincial data. Salary payroll excludes taxable benefits. Average salary means salary paid divided by disclosed records for that employer.
For the adjusted comparison, 2025 police-service records were added to Guelph, Kingston and Sault Ste. Marie because those services appear under separate employer names. Police records were already included in the city-employer disclosures for Thunder Bay, Barrie, Brantford, Greater Sudbury and Peterborough.
Rates per 10,000 residents use Statistics Canada’s preliminary July 1, 2025 census-subdivision population estimates. Results are rounded. This is a comparison of disclosed records, not total workforces, total payrolls, tax burdens or service performance.
