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CBC president Hubert T. Lacroix provided the “salary classifications” last month in the wake of numerous requests from the Senate for specific salary details of some employees. In a letter dated April 9 to Dennis Dawson, chair of the Senate’s standing committee on transport and communications, Mr. Lacroix insisted individual salaries are protected under the federal Privacy Act, a position he has also taken with Parliament.

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From FP Comment, May 11, 1999

There is a sense of ironic glee to be enjoyed on learning that Peter Mansbridge, CBC-TV’s leading public voice and long a proponent of open disclosure in corporate and government matters, turns out to have a rigid code of privacy that he enforces regarding his own affairs. Mr. Mansbridge refuses to disclose his salary to Liberal MP John Bryden on the grounds that, as a public figure, there are few things that remain private, and salary should be one of them. Right on, Peter. But, ahh, where were you over the past decade when governments all over the country passed salary disclosure laws that have provided The National with a steady flow of juicy reports on executive and civil servant compensation?

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The annual pay packets of Canada’s top television news anchors is a closely guarded secret, mostly for competitive reasons in part because two of the three national news anchors work for companies in the private sector and are not required by law to publicly disclose the figures. In the absence of a logical comparative, it is worth noting that Steve Paikin, host of TV Ontario’s Studio 2, took home $302,622.32 last year, according to the province’s annual Sunshine List of salaries for top-paid public-sector employees. And according to a former senior executive at Global News, an anchor at BCTV was paid close to $1-million more than a decade ago.