I was looking at a partial list of Canadian registered charities that have employees being paid 350,000 plus.  It is partial because only about 30,000 registered charities by February 2010 had filed their 2009 T3010B return, out of 85,300 charities.  Charities have 6 months after their fiscal year end to file.  I thought the list would be a lot more mixed but in fact is largely dominated by hospitals and health authorities.  It occurred to me a recent private members bill to cap compensation that can be paid by a charity to any employee at $250,000 will potentially most adversely affect hospitals in small cities and rural areas who probably have to use higher compensation to get the necessary health care professionals and skills.  It then occurred to me that maybe hospitals are, as my mother-in-law says “overrated” – perhaps we should return to a simpler time where doctors were generalists, practiced alone, arrived on horseback and most people did not have access to healthcare so if you stub your toe, you get gangrene and you died at the age of 30!