CEO salaries becoming immoral
Re How much do Canada’s 100 best-paid CEOs average annually? $8.96M, Jan. 4
Once again, while average Canadians’ salaries and benefits stagnate (if they can find full-time jobs at all), we read about the excessive compensation paid to Canada’s 100 top CEOs. Not only are the amounts unjustified, they’re immoral.
Particularly galling is the greed and sense of entitlement of so many executives who negotiate fancy contracts that allow them to effectively avoid tax on a huge portion of their earnings.
It’s well past time that the federal government revised our tax laws so that all forms of income (including stock options) are taxed more heavily.
While it might seem like sacrilege in our economic free-for-all, maybe it’s time companies were forced to limit their executive compensation to no more than 10 times the income of their lowest-paid employees.
Knowing they’d have to increase everyone’s salary whenever they increase those of their executives might make them reconsider such excessive executive compensation. Diana Hooper, Willowdale So what that our CEOs make 300 times the salary of the prime minister; every pension plan in this country is intrinsically linked to the wealth-creating abilities of these envied leaders of the stock market. The financial security of the Canada pension plan and all individual pensions depends on the growth of well-managed global Canadian companies led by these astute financial stars.
Currently there are more than 75 NHL hockey players enjoying double the earnings of the average CEO, yet they are not responsible for the wealth or welfare of this nation. Stop the salary bashing and let the shareholders be the police in this compensation dispute. Mike Zichowski, Thornhill Thanks to reporter Sunny Freeman for highlighting Canada’s top earners. However, her analysis of data from Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives is onesided. It does not tell readers how the top earners make themselves worthy of every penny they earn.
She could have told us that although the CEOs operate in a market economy and therefore their compensation is determined by supply and demand for top talent or that although their job is to maximize their shareholders’ wealth, they go beyond their call of duty.
Technology company CEOs save jobs not only within their own firms but in their local areas, jobs worth more than the millions they earn. The lives saved by insurance company CEOs by paying for some drug companies’ 5,000 per cent markups are priceless, not the mere tens of millions the CEOs earn. Telecom CEOs invest in under-serviced areas, compete fiercely, and, in the case of Canada, save us from being the most captive telecom consumers in the world. Vincent Silveira, Mississauga It is obscene that these CEOs earn that kind of money when most of us are struggling to make ends meet, working for low salaries with no pensions or benefits and expected to raise families and save for retirement.
Nobody deserves or needs that kind of money. What those CEOs earn in a year should be sufficient to live a comfortable lifestyle for their whole lives.
It is time to share the wealth. Marian Hogan, Mississauga Congratulations – a crucial news story about CEOs’ salaries on the front page. The term “stock options” is finally clear to us outsiders — a so-called legal way for these extreme earners to avoid the taxes they owe the social system of this country. Most of these obscene salaries are not even based on the CEOs’ productivity, but on their company’s share value.
Of course, we may try to feel sorry for the poor oil executives who had to take a “cut” last year when oil prices went down, but those 1 per cent earners will struggle along with one less luxury car.
More news of this kind, please! We need to know what is really happening to those disappearing tax dollars that could be funding better hospitals and schools. The tax system needs to be updated.
Those who “earn” the top 1 per cent of salaries will have to pay their fair, and humane, share of the taxes. Della Golland, Toronto
A spectre is haunting us – but it ain’t communism; it’s pay inequality.
The CEO of my company, with a bachelor’s degree from an Ivy League university, makes $7,500 an hour. I have a bachelor’s degree (summa cum laude) from a local university and, working part-time, earn just above $14 per hour.
There is no question that business acumen, risk taking and work experience should be commensurate with one’s income, but so should honest hard work and education – things I seem to share with my CEO.
Given the similarities between me and my CEO and the fact that education and hard work are the building blocks of the American (Canadian?) Dream, is there any rational or moral argument that can justify the 500 times difference in pay?
I may look and sound like my boss but his bank account seems to be in a galaxy far, far away from mine. Peter Mendrela, Brampton
The combined impact of two Star stories has left me worried and down.
On the front page was the story about CEO salaries. Inside was one about how low productivity makes us non-competitive with U.S. in spite of our low dollar.
The economic livelihood of Canada is at risk and our corporate leaders earn huge salaries. These are the people whose decisions to invest in new technology, R&D, and innovation are essential to more productive industry.
They are not doing the job and some companies like BlackBerry are bleeding money on the road to bankruptcy. It’s hard to understand the dynamics of this. Do shareholders value immediate profit at the expense of longer-term viability? Can government light a fire to ignite higher productivity? Peter Crosby, Toronto