Here’s how much Canada’s highest-paid CEOs earned in 2023
Canada’s 100 highest-paid CEOs earned $13.2 million on average in 2023 from salaries, bonuses and other compensation, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.
It was the third biggest year for CEO pay since the CCPA began tracking the data in 2007, but a decline after 2021 and 2022 broke records.
“It’s still well up from where it has stood historically,” said David Macdonald, report author and senior economist at the CCPA.
Factors leading to the decline included lower profits in 2023 and workers making wage gains after the most recent bout of inflation, he said.
The CCPA calculates that by 10:54 a.m. on Jan. 2, the average CEO on the list had made $62,661 — the average annual income for a Canadian worker.
The gap between CEOs and regular workers has grown significantly, the report found. The 100 top-paid CEOs earned on average 210 times more than the average worker did in 2023, while in 1998, they earned 104 times more.
The highest-paid Canadian CEO in 2023 was Patrick Dovigi of GFL Environmental Inc., whose total compensation was $68.5 million.
He was followed by Joshua Kobza of Restaurant Brands International Inc. at $39.1 million, then R.M. Kruger of Suncor Energy Inc. at $36.8 million.
Salaries were generally not the main source of CEOs’ total compensation, with most of it coming instead from other forms of compensation like share-based awards and option-based awards.
“Salaries make up an ever smaller proportion of their overall compensation,” said Macdonald, adding that sometimes an executive will even take a salary of just a dollar — including Tobi Lütke of Shopify and Murray Edwards of Canadian Natural Resources Ltd., both on 2023’s list.
The average cash bonus for these CEOs was $2.3 million in
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