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TORONTO — After all is said and done, taxpayers will have coughed up close to $5-million last year to pay former Hydro One CEO Tom Parkinson.
According to figures disclosed to the System for Electronic Document Analysis and Retrieval — a financial information database used by publicly trade companies — Mr. Parkinson was to receive a salary of $761,786, a $648,000 bonus and other payments of more than $139,113.
That's in addition to the $3.32-million he received in severance when he resigned in December, amid controversy he improperly billed personal expenses to his secretary's corporate credit card.
In the end, Mr. Parkinson will get $4,868,899.
The CEO left his job after the province's auditor-general issued a scathing report about the his billing practices.
The government has said the severance package was the fastest — and most likely the least expensive — way to get rid of Mr. Parkinson.
Former Hydro One CEO Eleanor Clitheroe's $30-million wrongful dismissal lawsuit is still before the courts and the government has said Mr. Parkinson could have launched similar legal action had he been fired.
New Democrat Leader Howard Hampton said Wednesday that he's outraged Mr. Parkinson was paid so much to leave when he should have been fired.
“What I think really went on here was this: Mr. Parkinson had become a political embarrassment for the McGuinty government, so they were prepared to pay just about anything to save themselves further political embarrassment,” Mr. Hampton said.
“This was not about doing the right thing.”
Conservative Leader John Tory agreed, noting this whole saga is a disgrace.
“(The government) just handed over the keys to the vault and said, ‘Take whatever you'd like on the way out,”' Mr. Tory said.
“They were irresponsible and totally motivated by politics and (had) no respect for the taxpayers' money.”
A spokesman for Energy Minister Dwight Duncan said a panel is expected to report back late this spring with recommendations on appropriate payment levels for executives in the sector.
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