Canada’s highest-paid CEOs will earn more by lunch today than average workers make all year

Canada’s richest execs keep getting richer, even during the pandemic. An annual report by Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) analyzes the ever-increasing salaries of Canada’s highest-paid CEOs and how their paychecks compare to the average person’s.

“Canada’s 100 highest-paid CEOs got paid an average of $10.9 million in 2020, which is higher than their pay in 2019,” the report says.

These execs now make around 191 times more than the average Canadian worker’s annual pay.

“Before lunch hour on the first working day of 2022, January 4, Canada’s highest-paid CEOs will have already racked up the same amount of pay that will take the average worker the entire year to accrue,” it continues.

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According to the CCPA’s findings, the highest-paid CEO is David Klein of Canopy Growth Corp, who earned a whopping $45,306,085 in 2020.

The second exec on the list, CEO and Former President of Burger King José Cil, earned far less in comparison at $26,902,999.

Also on the list is Tobias Lutke of Shopify, recently deemed Canada’s most valuable company. Lutke earned $20,263,595 in 2020.

The report found that out of 100 top-earning CEOs, only four of them are women.

While their salaries alone are impressive, the CCPA says that these high-earners make the bulk of their earnings through generous bonuses. In fact, these bonuses made up 82% of total compensation for the top-earning CEOs in 2020.

The bonuses are incentive-based and are given in the form of direct cash, company stock, and options to buy stock in the future at today’s prices.

To illustrate just how big these bonuses are, the report breaks down every source of the CEOs’ annual earnings. David Klein, for example, made a salary of just $281,715 and over $43 million in awards in 2020.

The CCPA lists five ways to bring more fairness to CEO pay, like introducing a wealth tax and eliminating loopholes that “disproportionately benefit” the CEOs. You can find all of the details here.