Canada's highest-paid CEOs make 246x the average worker, says new report

It was another record-breaking year for Canada's richest CEOs. 

In one work day, and less than a half hour into the new year — 27 minutes to be exact — Canada's 100 highest-paid CEOs will have already earned the average worker's annual salary, according to a new study by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

It translates to roughly $60,600 by 9:27 a.m. on Jan. 2, if you include Monday as a paid holiday, according to the report. 

The CCPA, an Ottawa-based think-tank that focuses on social, economic and environmental issues, found that the 100 best-paid CEOs in Canada now make 246 times what the typical worker earns. That number breaks last year's record of 243 times the average worker's pay. 

"The 100 CEOs, who are overwhelmingly male, got paid an average of $14.9 million in 2022. This amount surpasses their previously record-breaking pay of $14.3 million in 2021 and sets a new all-time high in our data series," said David Macdonald, a senior economist at the CCPA and the report's author. 

Lana Payne, the national president of Unifor, Canada's largest private sector union, calls the report "enraging."

"We've seen CEO pay increase consistently over the last number of years to a point now where it's the highest it's been ... And at the same time we have these CEOs and the employer clubs that they're part of lobbying every single day and fighting tooth and nail to make sure that we don't have better labour laws in this country," she said.

Not all CEOs, however, are paid such large amounts of money. Hosni Zaouali, the CEO of ConnectED Labs, a Toronto-based technology company, has a specific formula that he said he follows to ensure his pay and his employees' pay are on an "even scale."

He said the highest salary at his company is "never 10 times higher than the lowest salary."

"It means that if the company shows success, operational success and financial success, it's not only thanks to the CEO, it's also thanks to everybody, including the lowest salary in the company. So we make sure that everybody gets compensated accordingly," he said. 

Zaouali said it's "very important that the lowest salary is not too far from the highest salary in our company to keep everybody energized and everybody motivated."

While base salary is an important factor when considering CEO wealth, it doesn't provide a full picture of their total compensation, according to the CCPA report. 

Like last year's report, which CBC News also covered, part of the explanation for the large increases in CEO pay is linked to inflation, Macdonald said.

"This is largely a story about inflation ... CEOs are paid primarily through bonuses, and those bonuses are based on things like revenue and profits. When revenue and profit goes through the roof due to inflation, bonuses go through the roof."