By the time you read this, 100 of Canada’s top CEO’s will already have earned more than the average working Canadian’s entire yearly salary.
It’s a new record for Canadian CEO compensation.
In fact, for the 98 men and two women executives, they’ll already have earned more than working Canadians average yearly salary by noon on January 3, the first full working day in 2017.
Their average salary in 2015 was 9.5 million dollars, that’s 193 times the average salary for a typical working Canadian at about $49,000. Of course that gap is much higher still than those earning minimum wage in Canada.
The annual study is produced by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternative, a non-partisan think tank, and was authored by research associate Hugh Mackenzie,
“Nobody’s worth that much money, I mean, this is absurd,” says Hugh Mackenzie,
For the study the CCPA examined the proxy circulars filed for annual meetings in 2016 by the 249 corporations whose shares made up the TSX index as of June 30, 2016. It includes individuals identified as CEO or Executive Chair. Where the filing included either co-CEOs or a current and past CEO, both individuals were eligible to be included in the top-100 list. which says CEO salaries have continued to rise unabated in the ten years they have been performing the study.
Part of the difficulty in determining exact salaries of CEO’s however is due to the fact their compensation usually includes salary, bonuses, shares and stock options, pension contributions, and other compensation.
As an example of earnings, the CEO of Valeant Pharmaceutical made the equivalent of $182.9 million in 2015
In 2014, John Chen of Blackberry made over $89 million, but in 2015, dropped to 91 on the list as his salary dropped to a mere $3.8 million.
On the CCPA website, Mackenzie says, ““I’ve been tracking CEO pay in Canada for 10 years and nothing has changed. CEO pay keeps soaring, luxe stock option, pension and bonus packages remain the gold standard for CEOs, and despite public outrage, neither corporate boards nor shareholders are stepping in to put a lid on things”.
Mackenzie suggests Canada could take a look at a policy in place in Portland Oregon which will be charging companies a surtax when the CEO compensation reaches 100 times that of their average worker.
Additional information – sources
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