Why is this man laughing?
Because he’s already earned your year’s pay
OTTAWA — By the time most of us finished lunch on Thursday, Canada’s top CEOs had already feasted on the fruits of their labours — earning what the rest of us would have to work full-time for all of 2014 to collect.
Over the course of this year, based on 2012 levels, those in Canada’s corner offices will pocket pay packages totalling 171 times the average national income, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA). That’s up from 105 times the average wage in 1998.
Put another way, CEOs will earn an average of $7.96-million this year, compared with $46,634 for most other workers, the Ottawa-based think-tank said Thursday in its annual income review of 100 executives.
The review, titled All In A Day’s Work? CEO Pay In Canada, notes that five years after a global recession “knocked the wind out of Canada’s labour market, throwing tens of thousands of workers onto the unemployment line and sidelining a generation of young workers, the compensation of Canada’s CEO elite continues to sail along.”
The CCPA says the average wage of Canadians rose six per cent from 1998 to 2012. Over the same period, meanwhile, the average compensation for the country’s highest corporate earners jumped 73 per cent.
The CCPA rankings of the highest paid CEOs are based on the 240 publicly listed Canadian companies on the S&P/TSX index.
The $7.96-million average CEO compensation “would be enough to wipe out the budgetary deficits of any one of the following provinces: Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia or PEI,” the CCPA said.
Topping the 100 club in 2012 was E. Hunter Harrison, the CEO of Canadian Pacific Railway, who earned $49.15 million. Part of the package for Harrison, the head of Canadian National Railway until 2009, was in compensation by CP for rival CN denying him pension and other payments when he left that company.
James Smith, CEO of Thomson Reuters Corp., was the secondhighest paid at $18.81 million. Rounding out the Top 5 were Talisman Energy Inc. former boss John
There is no clear relationship between CEO compensation and any measure of corporate performance. … the pay of CEOs in Canada and elsewhere has proven to be remarkably resilient HUGH MACKENZIE, CANADIAN CENTRE FOR POLICY ALTERNATIVES ECONOMIST
Manzoni at $18.67 million, Eldorado Gold Corp.’s Paul Wright at $18.66 million and Donald Walker, CEOof Magna International Inc., at $16.85 million.
Only three women made the bigbuck list in 2012, but that’s an improvement over the previous year when there was just one.
Linda Hasenfratz, CEO of Linamar Corp., was ranked No. 45 at income of $7.02 million, followed by Dawn Farrell, CEO of TransAlta Corp., at No. 64 with income of $5.66 million. Nancy Southern, CEO of ATCO Ltd., came in at No. 88 with annual compensation of $4.34 million.
The lowest paid member of that exclusive list — Lino Saputo Jr. CEO of Montreal-based dairy Saputo Inc. — earned $3.85 million.
“Compensation packages paid to chief executive officers have come under intense scrutiny and pressure from shareholders, the media, and the general public,” said CCPA economist Hugh Mackenzie.
“There is no clear relationship between CEO compensation and any measure of corporate performance,” he said. “But despite the scrutiny, the pay of CEOs in Canada and elsewhere has proven to be remarkably resilient.”
Share options make up a big part of CEO compensation, the CCPA says, with 78 of the 100 top earners being granted stocks and the same number of executives receiving stock options.
The average stock granted was valued at $2.87-million in 2012, while the average stock option was valued at $2.17-million.