Ontario NDP seek double salary ban for university brass
In response to outrage about news the president of Western University was paid $924,000 last year, the Ontario NDP is introducing a private member's bill today that would prohibit university brass from collecting two salaries in a year.
- How Western president Amit Chakma was able to take home $924,000 last year
- Check out the entire searchable sunshine list online.
As CBC.ca reported Friday when the sunshine list was released, Amit Chakma was paid nearly $1 million last year — double his normal salary — because he worked through a scheduled one-year sabbatical.
The double pay has received considerable criticism at the university and beyond after Chakma was revealed as one of the province's top public-sector earners in the annual sunshine list of public salaries over $100,000.
Chakma announced Wednesday that he would refund the payment he received in lieu of taking a sabbatical, amounting to nearly half a million dollars.
The same clause allowing for a double payout if he forgoes a sabbatical is also in Chakma's new contract, but he says he will also give up that payment in 2019.
Peggy Sattler, the NDP MPP for London-West, says her private member's bill would amend the Broader Public Sector Executive Compensation Act to ban such contract clauses.