Former Hydro boss paid $880K for working 1½ months in 2024 until her ouster

The former boss of Manitoba Hydro was paid nearly $900,000 in compensation in 2024, despite only working 1½ months before her dismissal from the Crown corporation.

The high pay earned by Jay Grewal, revealed to be $881,177.94 according to Hydro's annual compensation disclosures this week, suggests the utility bought out the remainder of her contract, according to a University of Manitoba business instructor who teaches a compensation course.

Grewal's pay in 2024 — more than doubling the compensation of any other Hydro employee — is a 61 per cent increase from the $546,698.12 she earned in 2023 for a full year as president and chief executive officer. 

"My speculation is that she got every cent owed on the contract," the U of M's Sean MacDonald said.

For senior managers, specifically those running major energy companies, "the market dictates that if you want someone of considerable ability," the compensation must reflect that, he said.

MacDonald said he understands the high pay of departed taxpayer-funded executives can spark public outrage, but it is a necessary price to pay that accounts for their risk in assuming a job they could lose at the government's whim instead of matters related to conduct or performance. 

"The public really needs to understand that to attract and retain quality people, to ensure our institutions and our major organizations funded by the taxpayer are well-managed, you're going to have to pay a lot for it," said MacDonald.

Hefty buyouts are part of that equation, he said.

"There's nothing scandalous here."

Manitoba Hydro dismissed Grewal on Feb. 13, 2024, two weeks after the NDP cabinet minister in charge of the corporation slammed her desire to purchase wind power from private sources.

At the time, Hydro's board chair used the term "parting ways" to describe Grewal's departure.

A former executive with Capstone Mining, B.C. Hydro and CIBC World Markets, Grewal took over Manitoba Hydro in February 2019 after a national hiring search.

The NDP government was elected in the fall of 2023. There were no signs of rancour between the government and Grewal until Jan. 30, 2024, when she said in a speech that Hydro may need new sources of power by 2029 — and repeated the corporation's plans, first made in 2023 under the former PC government, to buy that electricity from private wind-energy companies.

Nonetheless, Adrien Sala, the NDP government's minister responsible for Hydro, criticized Grewal's statements in the days that followed and rejected the notion Hydro would purchase power from private sources.