As of 10:15 a.m. Tuesday, executives at Quebec's largest companies will have already earned the average salary of a Quebec worker over the course of an entire year, according to a report from the Canadian Center for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).
Every year, the CCPA compiles the list of Canada's 100 highest-paid business leaders. These include 21 business leaders headquartered in Quebec.
The report released Tuesday shows that these 21 CEOs earn an average of $13.1 million per year. In less than two days in 2024, they earned an average of $57,900, up to 226 times more than the average Quebecer.
The average salary in just 8 hours
With a national average wage of $7,162 per hour, the 100 CEOs of Canada's largest companies need just over eight hours of work to earn the average annual salary of a Canadian worker. So at 9:27 a.m. on January 2, 2024, they would have already won $60,600.
Note that the latest data shows that the average worker in Canada saw an average increase of $1,800, or 3%, in 2022, from $58,800 in 2021 to $60,600 in 2022. At the same time, prices increased by 6.8% in 2022.
“As the tide of inflation hits ordinary Canadians, Canada’s 100 highest-paid CEOs are poised for another record year,” the report said.
The document states that these big bosses received an average of $14.9 million in 2022. An “unprecedented” high, surpassing the previous record of $14.3 million set last year, noted economist David Macdonald, author of the report. It's also double what CEOs received in 2008 ($7.4 million).
Only four of the country's 100 top bosses are women, which “is nothing new and continues to highlight the extreme gender inequality at the top of Canadian companies,” he said.
- The study conducted by the CCPA is based on CEO compensation data from their companies' 2022 annual reports.
The highest paid business leaders in Quebec in 2022
1 – Joseph C. Dad
• Company: Bausch Health Companies
• Total compensation: $25,742,006
2 – Philip Fayer
• Company: Nuvei Corporation
• Total compensation: $21,015,277
3 – Thomas J. Appio
• Company: Bausch Health Companies
• Total compensation: $17,140,022
4-Darryl White
• Company: Bank of Montreal
• Total compensation: $14,285,506
5 – Serge Godin
• Company: CGI Group
• Total compensation: $13,800,517
6-Tracy Robinson
• Company: Canadian National
• Total compensation: $13,730,479
7 – Alain Bedard
• Company: TFI International
• Total compensation: $13,725,105
8 – George D. Schindler
• Company: CGI Group
• Total compensation: $13,627,963
9 Mirko Bibic
• Company: Bell Canada
• Total compensation: $13,593,649
10 – R. Jeffrey Orr
• Company: Power Corporation of Canada
• Total compensation: $13,311,802
11 – Glenn J. Chamandy
• Company: Gildan Activewear
• Total compensation: $12,866,848
12 – Michael Rousseau
• Company: Air Canada
• Total compensation: $12,375,100
13 – Brian Hannasch
• Company: Alimentation Couche-Tard
• Total compensation: $12,269,263
14 – Alexandre L'Heureux
• Company: WSP Global
• Total compensation: $11,530,245
15 – Laurent Ferreira
• Company: National Bank of Canada
• Total compensation: $10,988,413
16 – Neil Rossy
• Company: Dollarama
• Total compensation: $10,627,929
17 – Marc Parent
• Company: CAE
• Total compensation: $10,598,763
18 – Dan Barclay
• Company: Bank of Montreal
• Total compensation: $9,099,750
19 – Eric Martel
• Company: Bombardier
• Total compensation: $8,666,398
20 – Jose Boisjoli
• Company: BRP Inc.
• Total compensation: $8,546,282
21 – Ian L Edwards
• Company: SNC-Lavalin Group
• Total compensation: $7,976,320