The party is over before it began.

Public sector bosses in line for big raises when a five-year salary freeze is lifted this spring are out of luck, says Premier Katheen Wynne.

After days of controversy over proposed wage hikes for some community college presidents, Ontario Power Generation and Metrolinx transit executives — part of executive compensation reviews at 345 public sector employers — Wynne said some pay ranges were “just too high.”

At OPG, for example, the top of the range for chief executive Jeffrey Lyash was set at $3.8 million for a job that now pays $1.5 million in salary and bonus, already the highest-paying public service gig in Ontario.

Energy Minister Glen Thibeault had signed off on that and up to $8 million in raises for 80 executives at the utility, whose massive operations include the Darlington and Pickering nuclear power plants, over the next three years.

A draft review at Metrolinx, the regional agency that runs GO Transit and the Union Pearson Express, proposed a maximum raise of $118,000 for chief executive Bruce McCuaig, who now earns just over $361,000.

Wynne said the end of the freeze does not mean it’s all aboard the gravy train.

“Agencies must strike the right balance,” she noted in a statement that did not mention any public sector employers by name.

“They need to keep and attract great talent, with the right expertise, while ensuring that salaries are fair and appropriate,” added Wynne.

“Some sectors have not found that balance…in cases where employers fail to comply, we would refuse salary increases.”

With 16 months until the next provincial election, Wynne is trying to boost her government’s sagging popularity by promising to ease skyrocketing hydro bills and refusing permission for Toronto to charge tolls on the Don Valley Parkway and Gardiner Expressway.

The premier’s statement came as a damage control effort just hours after her Treasury Board president Liz Sandals and Thibeault justified the raises on their way into a cabinet meeting.

Sandals told reporters Ontarians struggling with hydro bills or transit delays that resulted in $4 million in payouts to GO riders in the last three years shouldn’t be peeved when they hear executives at Ontario Power Generation or Metrolinx could get big pay hikes END.

“Most of the people sitting on the GO train probably don’t have high-level nuclear qualifications or the business qualifications to run a multi-billion-dollar corporation,” she told reporters.

“The talent is exceptional to be in those exceptional positions.”

Progressive Conservative Leader Patrick Brown described Sandals’ comment as “condescending.”

Thibeault further defended the OPG raises, saying the Crown corporation is experiencing a brain drain of experienced leaders to rival Bruce Power, which operates a nuclear power station at Kincardine on Lake Huron, and to U.S. employers.

“For me it’s about safety, the safety of our nuclear plants…I’d much rather have them working in our plants than leaving our plants,” Thibeault said.

Lyash and the board had expressed “very serious concern” about the number of people who had left or were contemplating other opportunities, the minister added.

OPG officials later said 53 per cent of senior executives are eligible to retire by the end of 2019 and turnover has seen 20 per cent of senior executives leave annually since 2013.

Earlier this week, OPG said Lyash, who moved here from the U.S. to take the job in 2015, will be bound by his existing wage contract for the next three years “unless the board decides to make a change.”

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The public sector executive salary issue made headlines last month when some community colleges revealed plans to raise presidents’ salaries by as much as 50 per cent, earning a rebuke from Deputy Premier Deb Matthews.

She called that type of increase “unacceptable” and said she needed to “send a signal” because the government needs to keep spending under control as it emerges from years of deficits.

Wynne ordered Sandals to send a memorandum to public sector employers setting out the government’s expectations. They have until September to develop executive compensation plans.

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