No slowing in CEO remuneration
Canada’s top execs earned more than ever in 2015
The average total compensation for Canada’s 100 best-paid CEOs hit a historic high of $9.5 million in 2015, according to the results of an annual report on executive compensation.
That is 193 times the average worker’s salary in Canada, according to the report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
In fact, by 11:47 a.m. on Jan. 3, the first working day of 2017, CEOs in the top 100 will have earned what the average Canadian earns in a year — $49,510.
“Although public outrage over exorbitantly high CEO pay continues unabated, especially since the Great Recession of 2008-09, CEO pay in Canada takes a licking but keeps on ticking,” according to the report’s author, economist Hugh Mackenzie.
“And there seems to be no end to the great heights to which executive pay will soar.”
Mackenzie named Michael Pearson, the former CEO of Valeant Pharmaceuticals International, as the top paid CEO in 2015, earning $182,902,189.
It was reported last fall that Pearson and the company’s former chief financial officer, Howard Schiller, were being investigated by prosecutors in the United States for potential fraud involving the relationship between Valeant and a specialty pharmacy. Pearson stepped down from his role in the spring.
While Pearson’s income was nearly seven times as much as the CEO in second place, it did not abnormally skew the numbers because there are always one or two CEOs each year whose earnings are off the charts, Mackenzie said.
Donald Walker, CEO of Magna International, took second place with total executive compensation for the year of $26,539,700. Hunter Harrison at Canadian Pacific Railway earned $19,902,453, putting him in third place.
The average earnings of Canada’s corporate top 100 increased by 178 per cent between 1998 and 2015, according to Mackenzie.
Say-on-pay votes, which give shareholders an opportunity to voice their opinion on CEO compensation, have had little effect, according to Mackenzie.
“Those votes are simply advisory and boards are free to ignore them, and usually do,” said Mackenzie.
Of the $9.545-million average earned by the CEOs, $1.1 million was base pay; $1.8 million was bonus; $5.8 million was share-based; $316,000 represented the value of increased pension earned; and $530,000 was from other sources of income, such as benefits.
Forty-seven of the top 100 CEOs had a defined benefit pension plan, with an average pension payable at age 65 of just under $1.1 million.
Among the top 100 CEOs, 79 owned shares in the company that paid an average of $1.625 million in dividends in addition to everything else.
As for inflation, the average income of the top 100 CEOs has increased by 99 per cent since 1998, while the average Canadian income grew by nine per cent, according to Mackenzie.
“We should keep in mind that this income boom continued through a deep recession from which Canada has yet to fully emerge,” he said.
Mackenzie noted that awarding stock options confers an additional advantage because they’re not taxed as highly as income.
And while the federal Liberals promised during their election campaign to end that practice, they haven’t followed through, said Mackenzie.
“There wasn’t anything in their first budget on this topic and there is no indication that they are contemplating anything in their second budget,” he said.
Last on the top-100 list in 2015 was Eric La Flèche, CEO of Metro Inc., who earned $3,691,442, significantly less than Galen G. Weston, executive chair and president of Loblaw Companies, the market leader in groceries in Canada. Weston earned $8,485,197 in that role in 2015, according to the report.
But both La Flèche and Weston earned less than Marc Poulin, former CEO of Empire Co. Ltd., which reported in December that secondquarter profits fell by more than 50 per cent over last year. Poulin earned $8,575,955 in 2015, according to Mackenzie.
Empire announced in July that Poulin had left the company.
Mackenzie included several recommendations in his report for closing the gap between CEOs and workers, including: making shareholder votes on pay mandatory rather than advisory; and ending the special tax treatment for proceeds of stock options.
… CEO pay in Canada takes a licking but keeps on ticking.” HUGH MACKENZIE ECONOMIST