Ontario college presidents should be comparing apples to apples when it comes to setting their salaries, says post-secondary education Minister Deb Matthews.

Her comments came after reports that massive hikes for college brass are in the works after they looked to large organizations like Pearson airport and the LCBO to set salaries.

As required by the province, college boards have released draft plans regarding executive compensation, and while they can compare the pay of their leaders to those in other public sectors, some — including one college the same size as a city high school — have looked to much larger, more complex organizations such as York University, the LCBO and even Pearson airport.

“It’s a process where they have to put out papers for consultation and they have to identify comparable compensation and so I look forward to hearing what the public has to say,” said Matthews, minister of advanced education and skills development.

“But I am of the view that we have to be careful about keeping the student as our priority.”

As for concerns that institutions could be spending much more on executive compensation — George Brown College is looking at boosting presidential pay from $359,000 to $494,000 — Matthews said wages have been “frozen for some time, and we want to have a rational, reasonable conversation about what compensation should be. We want to obviously attract the best and brightest, but we don’t want to pay any more than we have to pay.”

“We have to let the process unfold,” she also said, “but I think the comparators would be the college presidents.”

David Brook of the College Employer Council, which bargains on behalf of the institutions, said the proposals are maximum salaries only.

The proposals come as colleges and faculty are entering into bargaining, and amid government underfunding, says the Ontario Public Service Employees’ Union.

“For us, the most disturbing (comparison) is Toronto Pearson,” said RM Kennedy, who heads the College Academic Division representing 12,000 faculty. “Toronto Pearson has 40,000 employees — that’s well over twice the largest college.”

Northern College in Timmins, with 1,900 students, measured itself against large urban institutions like Humber, Seneca and Sheridan, as well as York University and Toronto’s University Health Network. It wants to increase its president’s salary from $259,000 to $325,000.

The union is asking the ministry to “review the use of comparators and the metrics for the evaluation of executive performance and pay,” Kennedy added.

Meanwhile, Treasury Board President Liz Sandals said the government would consider raises for MPPs after the provincial budget is balanced in a couple of years and salary freezes can be lifted.

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MPPs now earn a base salary of $116,500 and have not had a pension plan for two decades, unlike federal MPs.