Canada’s 100 highest-paid CEOs made an average of $14.3 million in 2021, smashing the previous record of $11.8 million set in 2018, according to the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

Report author and CCPA senior economist David Macdonald said that the 100 CEOS, who are mostly men, made 243 times the average Canadian worker in 2021, again beating 2018’s record of 227 times.

Most of the money these CEOs made was not from their salary, but from so-called variable compensation, which includes bonuses, stock options and shares. That ratio has been climbing over the years, with 83 per cent of CEOs' total pay in 2021 made up of variable compensation compared with 69 per cent in 2008, according to the report.

The list’s floor has been rising as average CEO pay gets higher, said Macdonald; this year the lowest-paid CEO on the list was Cameco Corp.’s Tim Gitzel, at $6.7 million.

The CEO pay trends of 2021 are likely to have continued into 2022 as they were driven by historically high profits and historically high inflation, said Macdonald, which of course continued over the past year despite the Bank of Canada’s efforts to quell inflation with — again, historic — interest rate hikes.