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The Canadian Press

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Amit Chakma, president of Western University, is shown at the school’s campus in London, Ont., in 2009.KEVIN VAN PAASSEN/The Globe and Mail

The NDP is introducing a private member's bill on Thursday that would prohibit the kind of clauses in college and university executive contracts that saw the president of the University of Western Ontario get a double payout.

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.

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