KEEPING TRACK OF ONTARIO'S GOV'T EMPLOYEES

FP:  The most shocking fact in last week’s commentary from Ontario’s Financial Accountability Office about the provincial government’s employment, wages and salaries is buried in a footnote, albeit footnote 1: “The government does not publish consistent historical statistics for public sector employment and wage expenses.” So the FAO has had to figure out what’s been going on by using Statistics Canada survey data for the whole Canadian economy.
  The government presumably knows how many people it currently employs. It’s sending them cheques, after all, and its payments system, unlike Ottawa’s, isn’t terminally buggy. Somebody must be keeping track of the total number of paycheques. Yet, according to the FAO, the government doesn’t have any consistent way of comparing its current number of employees with its past employment.

   Doctors, university employees and people delivering social assistance,  hospitals, school boards and colleges, workers in public administration,  are all supported by the government, totaling 1,306,741 employees — with total compensation of $69 billion, accounting for 45.7 per cent of program spending.