MONTREAL -- Nearly 43,500 public sector employees in Quebec earn more than $100,000 a year, according to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation.
The organization, which campaigns for smaller government and lower taxes, hopes its conclusions will encourage Quebec to be more transparent in its spending - and to publish each year a list of its highest-paid employees, as do Ontario, Alberta, Manitoba and Saskatchewan.
The most recent list in Ontario, published last March, revealed that more than 151,000 public servants had earned $100,000 or more in that province in 2018.
Federation spokesperson Renaud Brossard said Tuesday that the agency had used Quebec's access to information law to request information from more than 2,000 provincial and municipal agencies.
According to Brossard, 450 public organizations refused to respond fully to access requests, but 1,688 others complied.
The data by the Federation reveals that 43,469 employees of the Quebec government and Quebec municipalities earn more than $100,000 per year, costing taxpayers around $5.3 billion.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Feb. 4, 2020.
