By 12:18pm today, just as most Canadians are starting their lunch break on the first official work day of the year, Canada’s highest paid CEOs will have already pocketed $48,636. It takes the average worker an entire year, working full-time to make that. How's that for a power lunch?
Read more in our report, Staying Power: CEO Pay in Canada.
Employment and labour
This report looks at the 2008-2014 compensation levels for Canada’s highest paid 100 CEOs and finds that the average pay of Canada’s top executives has been extraordinarily resilient, in good times and in bad.
The review finds that the country’s top 100 CEOs pocketed, on average, $8.96 million in 2014—that's 184 times more than the average wage in Canada.
TORONTO—On the first working day of the New Year, Canada’s highest paid 100 CEOs are seriously power lunching: by 12:18 pm today, their average pay is already $48,636 — what it takes the average full-time, full-year worker all of 2016 to earn.
In the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives’ (CCPA) annual examination of CEO pay in Canada, the country’s top 100 CEOs pocketed, on average, $8.96 million in 2014 — 184 times more than the average wage in Canada.
Two working parents with two children need to each earn a minimum of $18.52 an hour just to make ends meet in Toronto. In a new report, CCPA-Ontario Economist Kaylie Tiessen calculates the living wage in Toronto by drawing on a national living wage methodological framework. Read the report here.
As an international student in Canada, the stark difference in labour laws and provisions between Canada and my home country Nigeria embitters my heart. On a brighter side, my knowledge of these two contrasting realities has shaped my perspective. Studying the history of unions and their evolution in the Canadian workplace tells a story; a story of struggle, of determination spurred by an unflinching willpower to see change for better.
For a purportedly democratic country such as Canada, it is strange that so many of us seem to accept, unquestioningly, the absolute right of the employer to arbitrarily dictate the terms and conditions of our workplaces. This is just one example of what Ralph Nader is talking about when he says that, "When all is said and done, democracy is widely like and widely unpracticed."
(Vancouver) A new study finds that citizenship status plays a key role in farmworker safety, and recommends significant changes to immigration policies to protect this vulnerable workforce.
“Many British Columbians are probably unaware that immigrants and migrants make up nearly 100% of our farmworkers,” says Gerardo Otero, lead author of the study. “About half are South Asian immigrants and the other half Mexican migrants. And these workers, especially the migrants, are very vulnerable to exploitation.”
Based on interviews with 200 farmworkers, as well as representatives from industry, advocates and civil servants, this study finds that most BC farm workers are subject to hazardous conditions like unsafe transportation, substandard living conditions, long work hours and dangerous equipment. Employment standards for the agricultural sector are only loosely enforced.
Recommendations include:
The energy strategy debate thus far in the federal election has focussed on the future of the oil sands and pipeline politics. The Federal Tories have trumpeted the economic benefits of oil sands development but the benefits are paltry compared to a comprehensive energy and water retrofit program focussed on low income Canadians.