Word on the Street: Snippets | Media Watch | Ontario | Counties
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Prince Edward County says it wants a sustainable, diverse and year-round economy. Yet the Chamber says average annual hospitality income is approximately $23,000, while 92 County employees appeared on Ontario’s 2025 Sunshine List earning $100,000 or more. The contrast raises a difficult question: after years of surveys and strategies, why isn’t attracting substantial, well-paying, year-round employers a much bigger priority?
Prince Edward County has received another round of economic-development funding, including provincial support for the Prince Edward County Chamber of Commerce to develop a four-season visitor-economy strategy and for the municipality to advance a Community Improvement Plan.
There is nothing inherently wrong with either initiative. A longer tourism season could help local businesses, while a properly designed Community Improvement Plan could encourage investment. The problem is that Prince Edward County has spent years studying many of the same economic challenges while one of the most basic questions remains largely unanswered: where are the substantial new employers providing permanent, well-paying, year-round careers?
The Chamber’s own numbers make that question particularly difficult to ignore. Hospitality employment increased by 52 per cent between 2019 and 2024, yet the Chamber reports average annual income in the sector of only approximately $23,000.¹
It is easy to celebrate employment growth when the discussion stops at the number of jobs created. But employment statistics tell only part of the story. A seasonal or part-time position producing $23,000 over an entire year is economically very different from a permanent position paying $55,000, $70,000 or $90,000.
For many Prince Edward County residents, that difference determines whether they can afford rent, keep a vehicle on the road, buy groceries without anxiety, qualify for a mortgage, raise children, save for retirement or remain in the community at all.
That makes $23,000 one of the most important numbers in the County’s economic-development debate.
COULD THE PEOPLE MAKING ECONOMIC POLICY LIVE ON $23,000?
Now compare that with the people making public policy.
A federal MP’s base salary is $217,700 a year as of April 1, 2026.² Ontario MPP compensation is set at 75 per cent of the federal MP salary, meaning the 2026 base salary is approximately $163,275 a year.³ Prince Edward County’s own remuneration review reported the Mayor’s 2025 annual salary at $59,290.⁴
The comparison becomes even more striking when municipal compensation is considered.
Ontario’s Public Sector Salary Disclosure requires covered public-sector organizations to disclose employees receiving $100,000 or more. In the 2025 disclosure, 92 Prince Edward County salary records were at $100,000 or more.⁵
Of those, 50 were between $100,000 and $125,000, another 30 were between $125,000 and $150,000, seven were between $150,000 and $200,000, and five exceeded $200,000. Together, those disclosed salaries amounted to approximately $11.94 million.⁵
There is no suggestion that these people are improperly compensated. MPs and MPPs carry significant responsibilities, municipal government needs competent professional employees, and many of the County positions disclosed under the Sunshine List involve management, professional qualifications, emergency services, technical expertise and substantial responsibility. The $100,000 disclosure threshold itself has also remained unchanged for decades and consequently captures far more public employees than it once did.
But that is not the point.
The important question is whether the people designing economic policy fully appreciate the enormous difference between discussing a $23,000 annual income and actually trying to live on one.
Could they pay Prince Edward County rent, groceries, hydro, car insurance and fuel on $23,000? Could they raise children, deal with an unexpected $2,000 vehicle repair, save for retirement or qualify for a mortgage? What happens to that household when summer ends and its working hours decline?
Those questions are not arguments for paying public officials less. They are arguments for creating opportunities for PEC residents to earn more.
PERHAPS POLICYMAKERS SHOULD EXPERIENCE THE ECONOMY THEY ARE TRYING TO IMPROVE
Perhaps councillors, senior municipal staff and economic-development officials should spend some time experiencing the kinds of seasonal jobs that feature so prominently in PEC’s economy. The point would not be to stage a publicity exercise or suggest that public employees should abandon their regular jobs, but to understand the considerable difference between discussing seasonality in a meeting room and planning a household budget around an income that changes dramatically depending upon the time of year.
If extending the visitor season is going to be presented as an important response to PEC’s economic challenges, the public should eventually be told what it accomplishes for the worker. Does it create a few additional weeks of employment, or does it turn seasonal work into a permanent job? Does it provide benefits? Does annual income increase from $23,000 to $27,000, or does it become $40,000 or $50,000?
Those are much more meaningful measures of economic development than the number of consultations conducted.
TOURISM HAS SUCCEEDED, BUT THAT DOESN’T MEAN THE ECONOMY IS DIVERSIFIED
Prince Edward County’s visitor economy has unquestionably created opportunity. Restaurants, wineries, breweries, accommodations, farms, galleries, attractions and retailers have brought outside spending into the County, supported entrepreneurship and created employment. Tourism should continue to be supported, and extending the visitor season beyond a few peak months makes economic sense.
The problem begins when tourism growth becomes confused with economic diversification.
Prince Edward County’s own Economic Snapshot illustrates the distinction. Between 2019 and 2024, employment in accommodation and food services increased from approximately 970 jobs to 1,470, representing about 500 additional positions. Manufacturing, by comparison, increased from approximately 672 jobs to 747, an increase of only about 75 positions.⁶ Healthcare and professional services also grew, while other sectors experienced declines.
Those figures do not make hospitality growth undesirable. They demonstrate why the composition and quality of job growth matter.
A healthy economy needs entry-level, part-time and seasonal employment, but it also requires permanent positions providing predictable incomes throughout the year. Those are the jobs that allow younger residents to stay, families to plan their futures and households to absorb the rising costs of housing, transportation and taxation.
PEC has already documented seasonality, workforce availability, infrastructure and wage challenges. The question now is not whether the County understands the problem.
It is whether the County is changing the structure of the economy.
THEN PEC LOST ONE OF ITS LARGEST EMPLOYERS
That challenge became much more urgent when Highline Mushrooms announced the closure of its Wellington operation in 2025.
Prince Edward County itself described Highline as one of the County’s largest employers.⁷ Contemporary reports placed employment at approximately 281 workers, while the operation also generated business for agricultural suppliers in the surrounding region.
The closure cannot fairly be blamed on Council simply because it occurred within Prince Edward County. Highline said the Wellington facility no longer met its long-term safety standards and operational requirements, while the company was investing in a technologically advanced mushroom operation elsewhere in Ontario.⁸ Companies make investment decisions based on facilities, productivity, logistics, labour, infrastructure, markets and capital requirements, many of which can be beyond municipal control.
Nevertheless, when a community loses one of its largest year-round employers, it should fundamentally change the urgency of economic-development policy.
Residents should know when the County became aware that substantial reinvestment might be required at the Wellington operation, what discussions occurred with Highline, whether alternative PEC sites were considered and whether provincial or federal assistance could realistically have made a difference. If there was nothing the municipality could reasonably have done to retain the operation, that is a perfectly legitimate answer.
But that leaves the more important question:
What is the strategy for replacing those jobs?
SHOW TAXPAYERS THE EMPLOYERS
Instead of another lengthy report, Prince Edward County could provide residents with something remarkably simple: a list of the substantial new year-round employers attracted to PEC during the past eight years.
For each employer, the County could report the capital investment, number of permanent positions created, approximate wage levels, municipal incentives provided and new commercial or industrial assessment generated.
If PEC has attracted several major employers, publish the list and give the municipality credit for doing so. If the list is short, acknowledge that and make employer attraction a much greater priority.
County First would not state categorically that not a single major employer has arrived during the past eight years without reviewing every investment and expansion across the municipality. The better approach is to ask the County to produce the record.
Show taxpayers the results.
WHY ISN’T MANUFACTURING A MUCH BIGGER PART OF THE CONVERSATION?
Prince Edward County does not need to become Hamilton, Windsor or Oshawa to benefit from manufacturing. Modern manufacturing in a rural community can include food processing, agricultural technology, precision fabrication, modular construction, building products, medical products, beverage production, clean technology and specialized businesses serving Ontario’s agricultural, construction and healthcare industries.
PEC already has hundreds of manufacturing jobs.⁶ The question is whether the municipality is aggressively trying to expand that base.
A company employing 50 or 100 people in permanent production, technical, supervisory, logistics and skilled-trade positions can have an economic effect far beyond its own payroll. Those employees buy homes, shop locally, hire local contractors, use professional services and support restaurants and retailers. The business itself creates assessment, purchases supplies and can attract secondary employers.
That is why residents should know how many manufacturers and other substantial employers Prince Edward County approached last year, how many investment leads were generated, how many companies visited potential sites and how many projects ultimately went elsewhere.
Even more importantly, taxpayers should know why PEC lost those investments.
IF INFRASTRUCTURE IS THE PROBLEM, THEN INFRASTRUCTURE IS THE ECONOMIC-DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY
Municipal economic-development discussions have previously identified infrastructure and workforce availability as constraints on attracting larger employers.
If insufficient water, wastewater, hydro capacity or serviced employment land prevents PEC from attracting significant investment, those barriers should become major economic-development priorities rather than permanent explanations for why investment cannot happen.
Identify the bottleneck, determine what it costs to fix, develop the business case, seek provincial and federal infrastructure support, service the employment land and then market it aggressively.
A municipality cannot control whether a private company ultimately chooses to invest. It can control whether it has done everything reasonably possible to make itself investment-ready.
HOW MANY TIMES DO WE NEED TO ASK BUSINESSES THE SAME QUESTIONS?
Prince Edward County has not lacked economic-development research. The municipality’s public records contain Business Retention and Expansion work across multiple years, alongside economic snapshots, strategies, action plans and consultation exercises.⁹ Businesses have repeatedly discussed seasonality, workforce shortages, infrastructure constraints, housing costs and other barriers to growth.
There is value in keeping that information current, but repeated consultation eventually reaches diminishing returns. If employers repeatedly identify workforce shortages, the County knows workforce availability is a problem. If businesses repeatedly identify infrastructure limitations, the County knows infrastructure is a problem. If tourism operators repeatedly identify seasonality, another study is unlikely to reveal that January is quieter than July.
The difficult work is deciding what to do about it.
A Community Improvement Plan could become a powerful investment-attraction tool if it is designed around measurable economic outcomes. If municipal incentives are offered, the County should know what taxpayers receive in return through permanent jobs, wage levels, private capital investment and new assessment.
The measure of success should not be how much public money was distributed.
It should be what changed because of it.
THE SUNSHINE LIST ISN’T THE SCANDAL — THE ECONOMIC GAP IS
The easiest way to misunderstand this argument would be to interpret it as an attack on County employees earning good salaries.
It is not.
Prince Edward County needs competent engineers, managers, paramedics, financial professionals, planners, operators and other skilled employees, and competitive compensation is part of attracting and retaining them.
The more interesting question is why the principle government understands so well when recruiting its own employees does not appear with equal urgency in the economic strategy for everybody else.
Government understands that attracting talented people requires competitive compensation, stable employment and good working conditions.
Private-sector workers understand exactly the same thing.
A community in which significant numbers of people depend upon low-paid or seasonal work will inevitably experience pressure elsewhere. Housing becomes harder to afford, younger workers leave, businesses struggle to recruit employees and governments spend increasing amounts trying to address affordability.
The answer should not be to make secure public-sector employment less secure.
It should be to make secure private-sector employment more plentiful.
HOUSING POLICY AND EMPLOYMENT POLICY ARE REALLY THE SAME CONVERSATION
Prince Edward County is simultaneously spending considerable effort trying to solve housing affordability.
But consider what affordability looks like to someone earning $23,000.
Even substantially discounted housing can consume a large share of that worker’s income.
If PEC genuinely wants younger people and working families to remain in the community, the County has to attack both sides of the affordability equation: housing that costs less and employment that pays more.
Attracting a manufacturer creating 100 permanent jobs can therefore be an affordable-housing strategy. So can expanding healthcare employment, skilled trades, food processing and professional services.
Government cannot permanently subsidize its way around an economy that does not generate enough family-supporting incomes.
CREATE A YEAR-ROUND EMPLOYMENT SCORECARD
Prince Edward County could make its economic-development performance much easier to evaluate by publishing a simple annual Year-Round Employment Scorecard.
Rather than measuring success primarily through strategies completed, consultations conducted or grants distributed, the County should report how many prospective employers were approached, how many companies capable of creating 25, 50 or 100 permanent positions considered PEC, how many investment inquiries became site visits, how many resulted in actual investments and how many permanent jobs were ultimately created.
The scorecard should also disclose approximate wage levels, private capital investment, new industrial and commercial assessment and the major projects PEC lost to competing municipalities, together with the reasons those businesses went elsewhere.
Economic development is intensely competitive and no municipality can guarantee investment. But this type of reporting would allow residents to distinguish activity from results.
$23,000 SHOULD CHANGE THE CONVERSATION
There may be worthwhile ideas in the Chamber’s four-season initiative. Extending tourism farther into the year could make a meaningful difference to local businesses and workers, and a properly designed Community Improvement Plan could help attract investment.
The danger is assuming that a longer tourism season is the same thing as a diversified economy.
It is not.
The Chamber has already supplied the number that should force a broader discussion: approximately $23,000 in average annual hospitality income.
Compare that with a federal MP at $217,700, an Ontario MPP at approximately $163,275, a Mayor whose 2025 salary was $59,290, and 92 County employees whose salaries crossed Ontario’s $100,000 public-disclosure threshold.
Those numbers should not generate resentment toward people who earn more.
They should generate ambition for the people who earn less.
After years of studies, surveys, consultations and strategies, Prince Edward County should be able to tell taxpayers which substantial employers it is pursuing, which barriers prevent them from locating here and what is being done to remove those barriers.
Highline’s departure should add urgency to that work.
Prince Edward County has already proven that it can attract visitors. Its next great economic challenge is attracting investment that stays through February.
The success of that strategy will eventually be visible not in another report, but in processing facilities, manufacturing businesses, healthcare workplaces, skilled-trades companies, professional firms and other employers producing permanent paycheques.
Because the worker trying to pay the rent in January does not need another document explaining why seasonality is difficult.
They already know.
What they need is a good job that is still there when summer is over.
SOURCES / FOOTNOTES
1. Prince Edward County Chamber of Commerce — “Seasons of Opportunity.” The Chamber reports 52% growth in hospitality employment between 2019 and 2024 and approximately $23,000 in average annual hospitality income. https://www.pecchamber.com/Seasons-of-Opportunity
2. House of Commons of Canada — Members’ Sessional Allowance and Additional Salaries. The 2026 base sessional allowance for a Member of Parliament is $217,700. https://lop.parl.ca/sites/ParlInfo/default/en_CA/People/Salaries?param=hoc,&permalink=169
3. Government of Ontario — MPP Compensation. Ontario’s MPP base salary is set at 75% of the federal MP sessional allowance, producing approximately $163,275 based on the 2026 federal amount. https://news.ontario.ca/en/release/1005974/ontario-adjusting-compensation-for-members-of-provincial-parliament-with-all-party-support
4. Prince Edward County — Council Remuneration Review, May 2026. The review reported the Mayor’s 2025 annual salary at $59,290. https://princeedwardcounty.civicweb.net/document/354781/
5. Ontario Public Sector Salary Disclosure, 2025 / Sunshine List. Prince Edward County had 92 disclosed salary records of $100,000 or more. Published data show approximately $11.94 million in salary across those records, with 50 between $100,000–$125,000, 30 between $125,000–$150,000, seven between $150,000–$200,000 and five above $200,000. https://sunshinelist.org/employers/county-of-prince-edward/
6. Corporation of the County of Prince Edward, Economic Snapshot: 2020–2024. County economic data report accommodation and food-service employment increasing from approximately 970 jobs in 2019 to 1,470 in 2024, while manufacturing increased from approximately 672 to 747. https://www.thecounty.ca/business/economic-data/
7. Corporation of the County of Prince Edward — statement regarding the closure of Highline Mushrooms’ Wellington facility. The municipality described Highline as one of Prince Edward County’s largest employers.
8. Highline Mushrooms and contemporary reporting concerning the Wellington closure. Highline cited the facility’s long-term safety and operational requirements in explaining its decision. The article does not suggest Prince Edward County caused the company’s private investment decision. https://www.intelligencer.ca/news/highline-mushrooms-closing/
9. Corporation of the County of Prince Edward — Economic Data and Reports. Municipal economic-development resources include multiple Business Retention and Expansion studies, economic snapshots and economic-development planning documents. https://www.thecounty.ca/business/business-retention-and-expansion/
DISCLAIMER
This article is public-interest commentary based on publicly available government, municipal and business-organization information. Sunshine List disclosure simply means an employee met Ontario’s statutory public-sector salary-disclosure threshold and does not imply excessive compensation or wrongdoing. Salary figures cited are base or disclosed salaries as specified and may not include benefits, pensions, allowances, expenses or additional compensation.
The comparisons between hospitality income, elected-official salaries and municipal salaries are intended to illustrate differences in income and employment security and to encourage debate about Prince Edward County’s economic-development priorities. Individual companies make investment and location decisions for numerous reasons, many outside municipal control. Nothing in this article alleges misconduct by County employees, councillors, elected representatives, the Chamber of Commerce, Highline Mushrooms or any other individual or organization.