Top 100 Canadian CEOs made, on average, 248 times more than average Canadian worker
For HR leaders grappling with pay transparency, equity and retention, a new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA) says executive compensation is accelerating away from employee pay at record speed.
Canada’s top corporate executives earned record-breaking pay in 2024, widening the gap between CEO and worker compensation to its highest level on record.
The think tank’s study, Living the high life: A record-breaking year for CEO pay in Canada, found that the 100 highest‑paid CEOs in the country received an average of $16.2 million in total compensation in 2024, surpassing the previous record of $14.9 million set in 2022.
The typical worker, by comparison, earned $65,548.
That means the top 100 CEOs made, on average, 248 times more than the average Canadian worker last year, the CCPA said. In the late 1990s it was 104 to 1; in 2008, the ratio was around 170 to 1.
“CEOs have always been paid more than the average worker, but the gap has grown five times larger over the past four decades,” said David Macdonald, Senior Economist with the CCPA and author of the report.
Top CEO pay in Canada
The threshold to make the top‑100 list also hit a new high. The “minimum wage” for entry was $7.2 million in 2024, up from $6.9 million in 2023 and more than double the roughly $3‑million level seen in the late 2000s.
“CEOs used to be able to make it on the highest-paid 100 list by making a ‘meagre’ $3 million. Now it takes over $7 million,” Macdonald said.
The report converts these figures into hourly and daily terms to illustrate the scale of the gap. In 2024, the highest‑paid CEOs earned $7,812 an hour, or about $130 every minute of every working day. Assuming both CEOs and workers receive paid vacation and statutory holidays, it takes just over eight working hours at the start of the year for the top 100 CEOs to earn what the average worker makes in an entire year.
“By 9:23 a.m. on January 2, the highest-paid CEOs already make what will take the average worker to make all year,” Macdonald said.
At the very top of the list, Shopify’s chief executive became the highest‑paid CEO in Canadian history, earning $205.5 million in 2024.
“Over the 19 years that the CCPA has been tracking CEO compensation, we’ve never recorded a single year compensation package that high,” Macdonald wrote.
Here are the 10 highest paid CEOs in 2024:
Worker pay, cost of living
The CCPA compared pay trends to the rising cost of living. From 2020 to 2024, average worker pay rose 15%, from $57,024 to $65,548. Over the same period, average pay for the top 100 CEOs increased 49%, from $10.9 million to $16.2 million.
Between January 2020 and January 2025, consumer prices overall climbed 18%, the report noted. “Since workers’ pay went up by only 15% over that period, it means that workers took an effective 3% pay cut,” Macdonald wrote. By contrast, the 49% increase in CEO compensation outpaced inflation and most major household expenses.
Grocery prices rose 22% over the period, with particular staples increasing much faster. The price of pasta climbed 47%, beef 39% and eggs 35% compared with 2020. “These prices rose twice as fast as average worker pay, although still less than the CEOs’ pay increases,” Macdonald said.
Housing costs also rose sharply. Rents increased 26% between 2020 and 2024, homeownership costs were up 29% and utilities 23%. “For the third of Canadians who rent, having wages go up by 15% and rent go up by 26% is going to put real pressure on any budget,” Macdonald wrote, adding that CEOs “saw their compensation go up twice as high as rent.”
Why is CEO pay so high?
The study links rising executive pay to elevated corporate profits and the structure of CEO compensation. Before the pandemic, corporations generated about $400 billion a year in pre‑tax profits. That figure has since risen to roughly $600 billion, reaching $630 billion in 2024 after peaking at $668 billion in 2022, according to Statistics Canada data cited in the report.
“It’s worth remembering that the extra dollars Canadians are paying for higher prices goes somewhere: corporate profits,” Macdonald wrote. Those profits, and associated measures such as revenue and share price, are “the basis for CEO bonuses,” he added. “Inflation continues to be the gift that keeps on giving for the corporate sector and, by extension, the CEOs whose bonuses are tied to their profits.”
The composition of CEO pay has also shifted further towards incentive‑based compensation. In 2024, 84.3% of total CEO compensation came from bonuses — including cash incentives, stock options and share awards — a record high share, the report found. Base salaries for the highest‑paid CEOs, adjusted for inflation, have been declining since 2017 and are now roughly at 2009–10 levels.
In 2024, the CBC disbursed over $18 million in bonuses to different workers – including 45 executives who took home more than $3.3 million in bonuses. On average, these executives each received over $73,000.
Macdonald argued that so‑called “performance‑based pay” for executives often does not fall when results do. Citing the COVID‑19 downturn in 2020, he said many companies adjusted targets or used government support to preserve bonuses despite weak profits.
“It’s a game of when things are bad it’s not the CEO’s fault, so they get their bonus anyway and if things go well, it’s all the CEO’s doing and it ends in a huge payday,” he wrote. “Therefore, these bonuses aren’t at risk in a meaningful way, they are one-way bonuses only: up.”
The report also highlighted gender disparities at the top of the corporate ladder. In 2024, five of the 100 highest‑paid CEOs were women — the highest number recorded by the CCPA, but only 5% of the list, compared with women making up 47% of the overall labour market. Macdonald noted that the number of women on the list now equals the number of men named Scott, and exceeds the number of men named John. Even so, “the highest-paid female CEOs still get paid only 73% of what their male counterparts got paid,” he wrote.
