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The number of senior leaders at provincial transit agency Metrolinx has increased again as a review of its reliance on external consultants brings some axed contractors on board as full-time, high-paid staff.
Data released through Ontario’s annual salary disclosures, known as the sunshine list, reveals there were 124 people at Metrolinx with vice-president in their title last year — a five-per cent increase on 2024.
The average salary for a vice-president at the Crown corporation was roughly $248,000 in 2025, according to the list. That’s up from $243,000 in 2024 and $237,000 the year before.
Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles said spending at the agency, which now has as many vice-presidents as there are MPPs in the province, was spiralling.
“Despite the government’s claims they were going to get Metrolinx under control, there are now 124 vice-presidents at Metrolinx,” she said.
“Under this government, the people at the top, the CEOs, the vice-presidents, they continue to grow. The premier keeps giving himself and his friends raises, and yet what do we have for it? Life has become and continues to be completely unaffordable for Ontarians.”
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The number also represents a short-term setback for Metrolinx CEO Michael Lindsay in his efforts to overhaul and reform the agency he inherited from former boss Phil Verster a little over a year ago.
Since taking over at the top, Lindsay has signalled he wants to move the Crown corporation away from some of its legal battles of the past, cut the number of third-party consultants it pays and rein in the size of its leadership.
During his first year, Metrolinx shed more than 400 full-time and part-time consultants, including people on contracts with its planning and procurement divisions. That success, which the agency said saved it $100 million, looks like it is partially responsible for the increase in vice presidents.
During a sit-down interview with Global News this year, Lindsay said some of the consultants he had been able to get off the agency’s books had then been hired as senior leaders.
“There’s been reductions in the total complement of both Metrolinx as an organization, but also, even more significantly, a sharp reduction in the number of third-party consultants that are around,” he said.
“With many of those third-party consultants, I’m delighted to say, converting to be Metrolinx full-time employees, bringing their subject matter expertise in a durable way to this region.”
The six vice-president positions Metrolinx added between 2024 and 2025 is a slower rate of growth than the 36 that joined its ranks the year before. The figure could include someone departing and their replacement if both made more than $100,000 in 2024 or compensation packages for former employees.
In a brief statement, the agency said its increase in VPs came after savings had been made relating to consultants.
“As Metrolinx delivers the largest transit expansion in Ontario’s history, we are strengthening in house expertise and reducing reliance on hundreds of third-party contractors, resulting in $100 million of savings,” they wrote in a statement.
© 2026 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.
