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By David Opinko

Canada’s top CEOs made 202 times average worker pay in 2019

Jan 5, 2021 | 12:40 PM

LETHBRIDGE, AB – In just four days in 2019, the country’s wealthiest CEOs had already made what the average worker would take home in the entire year.

The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) has released its report on “The Golden Cushion: CEO Compensation in Canada.”

Since corporate reporting is typically not filed until the following spring, full details on 2020 CEO income is not available.

CCPA says that, in 2019, the ratio of average pay for the top-100 CEOs to the average worker was 202:1.

For the top-100 CEOs, they brought home an average of $10.8-million compared to $53,482 for the average individual income.

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This means that it took only until 11:17 am on January 4 to make what a typical worker would make for all of 2019.

Canada’s highest-paid CEO for 2019 was Jose Cil from Restaurant Brands Intl., the parent company that owns Tim Horton’s, Burger King, and Popeyes. He had total compensation of $27,482,409 in 2019.

The ways that the wealthy are paid tends to be different from how the average person is compensated.

Just 12 per cent of top-100 CEO pay came from their base salaries. 39 per cent was from cash bonuses, 23 per cent from stock options, and 19 per cent from shares.

CEWS released a brief list of recommendations:

• Exclude companies that substantially-increase executive salaries from accessing the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy
• Eliminate the capital gains inclusion rate and replace it with a simple inflation adjustment
• Introduce new top marginal tax rates that would apply to salaries, cash bonuses, and stocks

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