Last week, David Macdonald published his Living the high life: A record-breaking year for CEO pay in Canada with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives. In it, he lists the 100 top executives in Canada, based on the compensation they received in 2024.
Compensation includes salary, shares and stocks, option-based awards, non-equity incentive plan, pensions, and others.
Combined, the 100 executives finished 2024 with a combined $1.625 billion in total compensation. That is the highest since at least 2020.
In 2023, combined total compensation was $1.316 billion in 2023, $1.490 billion in 2022, $1.427 billion in 2021, and $1.088 billion in 2020.
The highest compensated executive was Tobias Lütke, the CEO & head of research and development at Shopify Inc, an e-commerce platform company based out of Ottawa, Ontario. He received over $200 million in total compensation, with only $1 of it coming from salary.
The next highest compensated CEO was a distant second at $70.3 million. Jay S. Hennick, the chair and CEO of Colliers International Group Inc, based in Toronto, received a salary of $2.4 million, with $66 million in shares and $2.3 million in “non-equity incentive plan compensation”, which is usually based on the company’s financial performance.
The lowest compensated executive on Macdonald’s list was Cyrus Madon, the executive chair of Brookfield Business Partners LP out of Toronto. His total compensation was just under $7.2 million, with a little over $1 million coming from salary.
Nearly half of the executives (46) were with Ontario-based companies. Québec came in second at 23, and Alberta’s 12 helped it secure 3rd place. In 2023, Ontario had 44 executives, and Alberta had 14.
Despite there being 12 executives from Alberta, there were only 11 companies on the top 100 list from Alberta.
| Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. | 2 |
| TC Energy Corp | 1 |
| Suncor Energy Inc | 1 |
| Stantec Inc | 1 |
| Pembina Pipeline Corp | 1 |
| Imperial Oil | 1 |
| Enbridge Inc | 1 |
| Cenovus Energy Inc | 1 |
| Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd | 1 |
| ATCO Ltd. | 1 |
| AltaGas Ltd | 1 |
AltaGas had 2 executives on the list in 2023 but only 1 in 2024. Same with Cenovus.
Here’s how the 11 Alberta companies paid out in total compensation to their executives who made the list:
| Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. | $28,002,953 |
| Enbridge Inc | $23,782,463 |
| Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd | $23,572,602 |
| Imperial Oil | $17,021,584 |
| TC Energy Corp | $15,178,187 |
| Suncor Energy Inc | $14,199,371 |
| Pembina Pipeline Corp | $11,840,604 |
| Cenovus Energy Inc | $10,391,189 |
| Stantec Inc | $9,549,955 |
| ATCO | $8,823,487 |
| AltaGas Ltd | $8,706,509 |
| Suncor Energy Inc. | $36,846,735 |
| Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. | $24,417,079 |
| Canadian Pacific Kansas City Limited | $20,079,552 |
| Altagas Ltd. | $19,457,254 |
| Enbridge Inc. | $18,732,784 |
| Cenovus Energy Inc. | $16,781,021 |
| Imperial Oil | $14,831,530 |
| TC Energy Corp. | $13,290,831 |
| Pembina Pipeline Corp. | $11,526,629 |
| Stantec Inc. | $8,593,731 |
| Atco Ltd. | $7,113,027 |
Total compensation for all Alberta companies was over $171 million, which is about a $20 million decrease from the $192 million paid out in 2023. Alberta companies paid out nearly $162 million in 2022 and $167 million in 2021 in compensation to executives on the top 100 list.
The 14 executives from Alberta received an average of $14.26 million in total compensation in 2024. Compare that to 2023, when it was $13.69 million; in 2022, when the average was $13.51 million; in 2021, when it was $12.82 million; in 2020 when it was $10.92 million; and 2019 when the average was $10.13 million.
And here’s how it breaks down by industry:
| Energy | $129,239,838 |
| Logistics | $23,572,602 |
| Engineering | $9,549,955 |
| Total | $171,068,904 |
Finally, here’s total compensation for each Alberta executive:
| Name | Title | Company | Comp. |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gregory L. Ebel | President & CEO | Enbridge Inc | $23,782,463 |
| Keith E. Creel | President & CEO | Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd | $23,572,602 |
| N. Murray Edwards | Executive chair | Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. | $18,758,541 |
| B.W. Corson | Chair, president & CEO | Imperial Oil | $17,021,584 |
| François Poirier | President & CEO | TC Energy Corp | $15,178,187 |
| R. M. Kruger | President & CEO | Suncor Energy Inc | $14,199,371 |
| Scott Burrows | President & CEO | Pembina Pipeline Corp | $11,840,604 |
| Jonathan McKenzie | CEO | Cenovus Energy Inc | $10,391,189 |
| Gord Johnston | President & CEO | Stantec Inc | $9,549,955 |
| Scott G. Stauth | President & CEO | Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. | $9,244,412 |
| Nancy C. Southern | Chair & CEO | ATCO | $8,823,487 |
| Vern Yu | President & CEO | AltaGas Ltd | $8,706,509 |
A few interesting things from the Alberta data.
The executive with the lowest salary was N. Murray Edwards, executive chair of the Calgary-based Canadian Natural Resources, who received only $1 in salary during 2024. But his total compensation still came to over $18.7 million, bringing him into the top 3 highest paid Alberta executives.
Just 1 other executive received less than $1 million in salary: Scott G. Stauth, the president & CEO of Canadian Natural Resources Ltd.
However, he ended up with much more than that once you factor in stocks, cash bonuses, and pensions: over $9.2 million.
Gregory L. Ebel, the president and CEO of Enbridge Inc, received the highest salary, at just shy of $2 million. He also received the highest compensation in shares, at $12.7 million.
Keith E. Creel, the president and CEO of Canadian Pacific Kansas City Ltd, received almost $6.4 million in stock options, the most of any other Alberta executive on the list.
The highest pension value that year was awarded to Nancy C. Southern, who was the chair and CEO of ATCO and received nearly $1.9 million. The highest “other compensation” amount among Alberta executives was paid out to B.W. Corson, Imperial Oil’s chair, president, and CEO, who received over $3.3 million.
Of the 14 Alberta executives who made the list in 2020, only 2 were still on the list in 2024.
- N. Murray Edwards
- Keith E. Creel
Of the 15 executives who were on the list in 2023, 11 were on the 2024 list, and here is how total compensation for those 9 Alberta executives changed between the two years.
| 2023 | 2024 | Change | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gregory L. Ebel | $18,732,784 | $23,782,463 | $5,049,679 |
| Keith E. Creel | $20,079,552 | $23,572,602 | $3,493,050 |
| B.W. Corson | $14,831,530 | $17,021,584 | $2,190,054 |
| Scott G. Stauth | $7,399,371 | $9,244,412 | $1,845,041 |
| N. Murray Edwards | $17,017,708 | $18,758,541 | $1,740,833 |
| Jon McKenzie | $8,671,098 | $10,391,189 | $1,720,091 |
| Nancy C. Southern | $7,113,027 | $8,823,487 | $1,710,460 |
| Gord Johnston | $8,593,731 | $9,549,955 | $956,224 |
| Scott Burrows | $13,290,831 | $11,840,604 | -$1,450,227 |
| Vern Yu | $12,318,855 | $8,706,509 | -$3,612,346 |
| R. M. Kruger | $36,846,735 | $14,199,371 | -$22,647,364 |
In his article, Macdonald proposed 2 measures to deal with pay inequity between executives and median worker pay:
- Millionaire’s tax
“Despite some wins and some losses on the road to fairer CEO compensation, other possibilities are still available. Perhaps the most appealing of which is a millionaire’s tax, where anyone making over a million dollars would pay a slightly higher tax rate on every dollar over that millionaire mark.” - Wealth tax
“Setting a wealth tax for those with assets worth more than $10 million, at one per cent a year, and rising to three per cent a year for those with over $100 million in assets could raise over $20 billion a year.”
