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When it comes to CEO compensation compared to the pay of the typical Canadian worker, the group containing the 60 largest companies has an average CEO-to-worker ratio of 159 times, based on the 2015 average industrial wage in Canada. While this figure has been fairly stable since 2012, the ratio for companies in the bottom half has risen to 83 times from 70.1 times in 2012.

The CEO pay ratio at Canada’s largest companies is higher than in jurisdictions such as the United Kingdom, but it is lower than in the United States, where new regulations will require public companies to disclose the ratio of CEO compensation to median employee pay beginning next year.

“In the U.S. … it’s well over 300 (times),” said Bob Levasseur, managing director at Gallagher McDowall. In a recent presentation, he said the ratio at companies in the S&P500 averages out at 331 times average annual worker pay in the United States.

Comparisons within companies, using actual employee salaries, are becoming more common as U.S. public companies prepare to comply with the new rules put in place by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, he said.

Similar rules exist in the U.K., but Canadian regulators do not require disclosure of CEO-employee pay ratios.

Levasseur said the debate about economic inequality that has surrounded the adoption of the new rules in some countries is worthwhile. But he questions the benefit of focussing too much on extreme examples — such as one that showed the CEO of Walmart earned over 1,000 more than his average employee — when there are other potential ways to measure the the value of a CEO to a company.