Queen’s 2025 Sunshine List revealed a persistent gender pay gap, with men making up most earners and receiving higher average salaries than their female counterparts
Published on March 27, the Ontario Sunshine List identified Ontario’s top public sector earners making more than $100,000 in 2025. Among them were 1,469 Queen’s employees, with an average salary of $174,914. Compared to 2024, the number of Queen’s employees on the list decreased by seven people, while the average salary rose by $2,158.
Of the 1,469 employees on the list, 690 were female, and 753 were male, making men 62 per cent of the total. The average salary for female employees was $167,697, compared with $181,991 for male employees. The average raise for female employees was 4.7 per cent, almost one percentage point higher than for male counterparts, who experienced an average raise of 3.6 per cent.
The Journal compiled a list of the top five highest earners at Queen’s for the 2025 calendar year.
5. Paul Kubes, Professor, Canada Excellence Research Chair in Immunophysiology and Immunotherapy, $414,920
Professor and Canada Excellence Research Chair in Immunophysiology and Immunotherapy, Kubes, earned $414,920 in 2025. His salary increased by 65.2 per cent from 2024, rising from $251,138 to $414,920.
In 2024, it was announced that Kubes would be joining Queen’s as a new research chair to advance research on cancer and chronic disease, making him a part of the Queen’s Health Sciences and the Queen’s Cancer Research Institute.
4. Patrick Deane, Principal and Vice-Chancellor: $418,609
In 2025, Principal Patrick Deane ranked as Queen’s fourth-highest earner, with a salary of $418,609. His pay remained unchanged from 2024, marking a third consecutive year without a raise. In 2024, Deane ranked as the University’s fifth-highest earner, meaning he moved up one spot in this year’s top five.
Among Ontario university employees listed under the President and Vice-Chancellor category in 2025, 20 people appeared on the Sunshine List, with the overall average salary being $357,318.
Deane’s salary was above the category average, though lower than several of Ontario’s other top-paid university presidents and vice-chancellors, including Western President Alan Shepard at $506,000, University of Guelph President Rene Van Acker at $496,493, McMaster President Susan Tighe at $465,621, and Carleton President Wisdom Tettey at $419,502.
3. Elspeth Murray, Director (Centre for Entrepreneurship, Innovation and Social Impact), Academic Director (Master of Management Innovation and Entrepreneurship), Associate Professor, Smith School of Business: $425,762
Murray ranked as Queen’s third-highest earner in 2025, with a salary of $425,762. Her pay increased by 4.8 per cent from $406,166 in 2024, following a 20.7 per cent decline the previous year from her 2023 salary of $512,348.
Murray has been teaching at the Smith School of Business since 1996. She has held several senior academic leadership roles at Smith over the years. She served as associate dean of MBA programs, director of the Centre of Entrepreneurship, Innovation & Social Impact, and associate professor of Strategy & Entrepreneurship at Queen’s.
2. Shai Dubey, Lecturer, Smith School of Business: $517,422
Dubey was ranked as Queen’s second-highest earner in 2025, with a salary of $517,421. According to the list, his pay increased by 8.9 per cent from 2024, when he earned $475,107. That follows a 29 per cent increase in 2024 from his 2023 salary of $368,407, continuing a sharp upward trend in recent years.
He has been a Queen’s employee since 2010 and taught negotiation and international business law through the Smith School of Business and Queen’s Faculty of Law. In 2025, he was listed as a Lecturer.
Among employees in that position category in 2025, 117 people appeared on the Sunshine List, with an average salary of $154,837.
1. Jane Philpott, former Director of the School of Medicine and Dean of the Faculty of Health: $556,520
Philpott remained Queen’s top earner in 2025, with a salary of $556,520. Her pay increased by 0.7 per cent from 2024, when she earned $552,435, after a 1.2 per cent increase the previous year.
Philpott served as director of the School of Medicine and dean of the Faculty of Health Sciences at Queen’s from July 2020 until November 2024. She stepped down to begin her new role as Chair of the Primary Care Action Team, an initiative by the Ontario government to connect every Ontarian to primary health care.
On the Ontario public salary disclosure website, Philpott’s 2025 position is listed as “Chair, Connecting Every Ontarian to Primary Health Care Initiative,” rather than one of her former Queen’s roles, but her employer is stated as Queen’s University. While her LinkedIn claims she’s still a professor of family medicine at Queen’s, it remains unclear what portion of her salary is tied to her previous University position versus her 2024 provincial appointment.
Tags
Elspeth Murray, Jane Philpott, Patrick Deane, Paul Kubes, Shai Dubey, Sunshine List
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s) in Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.