By the time Canadians returned from their lunch break on Jan. 2, Canada’s 100 top chief executives had already pocketed as much as the average full-time worker will earn in the entire year. There could be no starker illustration of the pay gap between the corporate elite and the rest of the workforce than that.

The numbers aren’t a surprise. Economist Hugh Mackenzie of the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives has been tracking the increasing share of national income that goes to the hyper-rich every January for the past six years. The trend hasn’t changed.

But the country’s economic performance has changed dramatically. In 2007, when Mackenzie began, the Canadian economy was growing by leaps and bounds, leading some economists to predict that the business cycle could only improve.

Then the 2008 recession hit. Today, the economy is limping along; a growing proportion of the population needs two or three low-wage jobs to survive; and families are cutting back on everything from groceries to heating costs.

Yet there is no sign of restraint at the top. The 100 highest-paid chief executives took home between $3.9 million and $49.5 million in total compensation, for an average of $7.96 million, in 2012 (the latest year for which Mackenzie could get figures). The average Canadian earned $46,634.

“Five years after a global recession knocked the wind out of Canada’s labour market, throwing tens of thousands of workers onto the unemployment line and sidelining a generation of young workers, the compensation of Canada’s CEO elite continues to sail along,” Mackenzie said. What’s more, he added, “there is no clear relationship between CEO compensation and any measure of corporate performance.”

He doesn’t know what it will take to bring Canada’s high-flying tycoons down to earth. Disgruntled shareholders have tried, citizens’ groups have tried, media commentators have tried, and a handful of politicians (none belonging to Stephen Harper’s Conservative government) has tried.

He can only hope public pressure will build as more Canadians realize that they’re working harder – but slipping backward.