Average Canadian salary
Let’s begin here: in 2013 the report notes that the average Canadian earned on average $47,358. Now this: The top 100 CEOs in Canada, on average, including bonuses and stock options (and why not — it’s money) earned $9.2 million.
Simple math tells you that the difference between them and us can be explained in the following mathematical ratio: 195:1. They make 195 bucks — the rest of us, on average, make one.
The Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives points out in the report that we live in a time, thanks in part to that recession, when the average person is unhappy with the gap between rich and poor and wants to see it grow not, as it seems to be, bigger, but smaller.
“Despite the recession, the public outrage, the criticism of political leaders and the devastating analyses of key business thinkers, the practice of compensating Canadian CEOs has not changed perceptibly since the global economy meltdown,” said the report’s author, economist Hugh Mackenzie.
New tax measures
Mackenzie’s report states it is “time to consider simple tax measures that provide a much more effective approach to closing the income gap in Canada.” He seems optimistic that such an event will occur, though he didn’t hazard a guess as to when.
“I think the longer we go on with the middle income stagnating and the upper end of the income scale continue to rise without reference to gravity,” he added. “The more likely we are to get to the point where the government will just change the rules.”
The biggest earner among those 100 CEOs, by the way, made so much that he skewered the numbers a bit. Gerald Schwarz, the CEO of Onex Corp., a private equity investment firm and holding company based in Toronto, earned $87.9 million in 2013, a good portion of it in stock options. That’s more than an elite professional athlete!
The report was titled Glory Days: CEO Pay in Canada Soaring to Pre-Recession Highs.
