People are wondering why Doug Ford’s daughter got a 33.9 per cent raise last year
Kara Ford is now the sixth-highest earner at the Runnymede Healthcare Centre, with a salary of $211,468
Ontario’s Sunshine List—the roster of public sector employees annually earning more than $100,000—was published last week, and you can bet we dove in, for journalism.
Ken Hartwick, president of Ontario Power Generation, was the province’s highest-paid civil servant, earning $1,907,408 in 2025. (In fact, the list’s top three earners all work for Ontario Power Generation.)
Related: Could another member of the Ford family become Toronto’s next mayor?
Mayor Olivia Chow earned $240,349. Premier Doug Ford came in at $269,567.
There are 708,753 people on the Sunshine List, however, and looking beyond the big names is an important part of transparency.
As many online are pointing out, a search for Kara Ford, one of Premier Ford’s daughters, reveals that her salary increased by 33.9 per cent last year. In 2025, she earned $211,468 as the director of strategy and stakeholder engagement at Runnymede Healthcare Centre, where she is the sixth-highest earner, bringing in just $33,483 less than the chief financial officer.
She now makes $83,416 more than she did in 2022 at the same employer, when she was manager of public affairs, corporate communication and volunteer services.
Around social media, some are questioning how she rose through the ranks without the level of education that would be commonly required for her sector.
As one person on Reddit commented, “looks like her basket-weaving course paid off!”
Related: Justifying recent OSAP cuts, Doug Ford told students to stop taking “basket-weaving courses”
Carly Lewis is a journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times and the New York Times Magazine, Vanity Fair, Wired, Interview Magazine, Pitchfork, Elle, and Maclean’s, where she is a contributing editor. Her work has been recognized by the National Magazine Awards and the Digital Publishing Awards. She reports on city life, culture—including what people do online—politics, art and crime. She received the Dave Greber Freelance Writers Award for “The Murder of Ashley Wadsworth,” an investigative feature about a Canadian teenager who was killed by a man she met on social media, published by Maclean’s.
