Sunshineliststats Newfoundland Labrador Guide

It began not with a scandal, but with a spreadsheet. A data journalist in St. John’s, a sharp-eyed woman named Maggie O’Rourke, had spent three weeks scrubbing the raw data from the Treasury Board. She wasn’t looking for fraud. She was looking for a story. She cross-referenced the names, job titles, and municipalities against census data, ocean temperature anomalies, and fish landings.

“Look,” he said, shivering. “If you want a doctor in Norris Point, you pay her $250k. If you want a diesel mechanic to keep the ferry running in Blanc-Sablon, you pay him $160k. The SunshineListStats showed us that our biggest expense isn’t corruption. It’s the Atlantic Ocean. It’s the distance. It’s the rock.” sunshineliststats newfoundland labrador

Her comment on the disclosure form, which Maggie found in a PDF appendix: “The sun don’t shine here for three months. I earned this by remembering what light looks like.” It began not with a scandal, but with a spreadsheet

The year the stats went viral was 2026.