... Hugh MacLeod, formerly a senior health ministry official, left his $320,695-a-year job as head of the government's climate-change secretariat Feb. 5 and starts Tuesday as chief executive of the Canadian Patient Safety Institute in Edmonton.
The move comes just four months after McGuinty defended MacLeod's role but had difficulty listing any tangible achievements from his almost two years in the post – where his pay, as revealed by the Star, was funnelled through a Toronto hospital to skirt civil service pay guidelines.
Shortly after that revelation, the annual report from Ontario's environment commissioner in December slammed the government's climate-change plan for a "lack of vision," leaving it short of measures needed to meet greenhouse gas reduction targets.
"If the premier can't say that he (MacLeod) has accomplished anything, then taxpayers have a right to ask where did more than half-a-million dollars go ... over two years, and for what?" said Progressive Conservative MPP Lisa MacLeod, party accountability critic.
[...]
The premier's office would not comment directly when asked if MacLeod's contract entitled him to severance, saying that as a member of the Ontario Public Service his income will be reported on the annual "sunshine list" disclosing public-sector salaries above $100,000.
McGuinty acknowledged last fall, after a Star story exposing civil service salaries being funnelled through hospitals where the recipients did not work, that it "offends the spirit" of the disclosure legislation to have salaries "buried away." He vowed to end the practice.
When asked at the time to point out achievements by MacLeod in his post, McGuinty was vague. ...
My bold.
You can bet he'll get a civil service pension.
This is why our "universal health care" costs are run amok.
Beware the boobs.
