Macleans magazine recently released its rundown of who earns what in Canada, crunching the salary numbers for everyone from a rickshaw driver in Toronto to a Supreme Court of Canada chief justice.
Some of the largest surprises came in comparisons between and within industries. For example, it turns out some of Canada’s government institutions pay considerably better than their U.S. counterparts.
The head of the Ontario Securities Commission, currently Howard Weston, earns $715,076, compared to just $165,300 for the chair of the U.S. Securities and Exchange commission, Mary Jo White.
Canada’s top central banker, Stephen Poloz, earns in a range between $431,800 to 507,900; but the U.S.’s top banker, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke, takes home just (“just”) $199,700.
Of course, in the U.S., those low salaries will be offset once these officials jump into lucrative lobbying or consulting jobs after their term is out, thanks to the government-lobby revolving door. The Canadian officials will likely find decent gigs once their terms are out as well, but that “revolving door” isn’t quite as egregious north of the border.
Seeing the differences between what CEOs earn and what their employees take home is also instructive.
For instance, Cirque du Soleil CEO Guy Laliberte takes home $1.5 million, while one of his acrobats takes home $40,000 to $70,000. That’s a CEO-to-worker earnings ratio of between 21-to-1 and 38-to-1. Much better than the overall national average for Canada, which sees the average CEO earn $207 for very dollar earned by a worker, as calculated by the AFL-CIO.
And in the U.S., that ratio is even larger: CEOs earn $360 for every dollar earned by workers.
So three cheers for egalitarian Canada Post, where the CEO-to-worker pay ratio is 10 to one. A senior letter carrier earns about $52,000, compared to $597,000 for CEO Deepak Chopra.
Check out what these jobs will pay in Canada. For full coverage of who earns what, check out Macleans magazine.
What These Jobs Will Earn You In Canada
Correction:An earlier version of this article misidentified Canadian Business magazine as the source of the wage research. Macleans magazine carried out the research. HuffPost Canada apologizes for the error.