Bank of Canada staff received $26.7 million in bonuses and raises in 2022.
According to documents released through access to information requests and published by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, employees at Canada’s central bank received $20.2 million in bonuses and $6.5 million in raises in 2022, a 13 per cent increase over 2021. More than 80 per cent of staff received a bonus or raise in 2022 at a time when the Bank of Canada sought to discourage consumer spending through interest rate hikes.
“Central bankers shouldn’t get bonuses when Canadians can’t afford groceries, gasoline or homes,” Canadian Taxpayers Federation director Franco Terrazzano told CTVNews.ca. “With inflation reaching a 40-year high, central bankers didn’t deserve bonuses.”
The Bank of Canada bonuses work out to an average of over $11,000 per person, and an average raise of over $3,400 each.
Records obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation also show that the number of Bank of Canada employees making over $100,000 per year more than doubled between 2015 and 2022. In 2022, 1,095 out of 2,250 Bank of Canada employees earned six-figure salaries, a nearly 13 per cent increase over 2021.
With the aim of combating inflation, the bank began raising interest rates in March 2022, from a pandemic low of 0.25 per cent to 4.25 per cent by the end of the year. Over the course of 2022, consumer and business bankruptcies increased while the consumer price index – a key inflation indicator – rose by 6.8 per cent, a 40-year high.
“The Bank of Canada failed to do its job of keeping inflation low and around two per cent,” Terrazzano said. “Most organizations don’t shower employees with bonuses when they have their worst year in four decades.”
In an email to CTVNews.ca, a Bank of Canada spokesperson confirmed the authenticity of the documents provided by Terrazzano’s organization.
“Our independent Board of Directors oversees the management and administration of the Bank, including our human resources policies,” Bank of Canada spokesperson Paul Badertscher told CTVNews.ca. “Like many employers in the financial sector, we hire and retain within a highly competitive environment.”
The bonuses, Badertscher explained, include “at-risk pay” for meeting work expectations and “performance pay” for exceeding expectations.
“The vast majority of employees met expectations and therefore received their at-risk pay, while about one-quarter of employees received performance pay,” Badertscher said.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is a non-profit taxpayer advocacy group. As Canada’s central bank, the Bank of Canada’s responsibilities include conducting monetary policy and issuing banknotes.
David Macdonald is the senior economist at the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a progressive think-tank that focuses on social, economic and environmental justice. Macdonald isn’t a fan of bonuses in general, but says the Bank of Canada payouts are nothing like the millions of dollars dolled out at private financial institutions.
“The bonuses are actually quite small compared to what you’d see in the private sector,” Macdonald told CTVNews.ca. “Generally these bonuses at the Bank of Canada or the big banks are paid out irrespective of whether times are good or bad.”
University of Guelph finance professor Nikola Gradojevic says that recent Bank of Canada decisions, like increasing money supply and hiking interest rates, have hurt many Canadians.
“Salary increments and bonuses in the public sector are normal and expected,” Gradojevic said. “Given the Bank of Canada’s past and current actions, on ethical grounds, it could be argued that their employees should not receive excessive bonuses, but only normal salary increments that other public sector employees receive.”
Macdonald said bonuses and raises at the Bank of Canada likely fell short of the rate of inflation.
“So employees likely took a pay cut once you include inflation, just like a lot of workers in 2022,” Macdonald said. “The whole point of rate increases is to make life more unaffordable so people have less money to spend in the economy.”
VANCOUVER – Contract negotiations resume today in Vancouver in a labour dispute that has paralyzed container cargo shipping at British Columbia’s ports since Monday.
The BC Maritime Employers Association and International Longshore and Warehouse Union Local 514 are scheduled to meet for the next three days in mediated talks to try to break a deadlock in negotiations.
The union, which represents more than 700 longshore supervisors at ports, including Vancouver, Prince Rupert and Nanaimo, has been without a contract since March last year.
The latest talks come after employers locked out workers in response to what it said was “strike activity” by union members.
The start of the lockout was then followed by several days of no engagement between the two parties, prompting federal Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon to speak with leaders on both sides, asking them to restart talks.
MacKinnon had said that the talks were “progressing at an insufficient pace, indicating a concerning absence of urgency from the parties involved” — a sentiment echoed by several business groups across Canada.
In a joint letter, more than 100 organizations, including the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, Business Council of Canada and associations representing industries from automotive and fertilizer to retail and mining, urged the government to do whatever it takes to end the work stoppage.
“While we acknowledge efforts to continue with mediation, parties have not been able to come to a negotiated agreement,” the letter says. “So, the federal government must take decisive action, using every tool at its disposal to resolve this dispute and limit the damage caused by this disruption.
“We simply cannot afford to once again put Canadian businesses at risk, which in turn puts Canadian livelihoods at risk.”
In the meantime, the union says it has filed a complaint to the Canada Industrial Relations Board against the employers, alleging the association threatened to pull existing conditions out of the last contract in direct contact with its members.
“The BCMEA is trying to undermine the union by attempting to turn members against its democratically elected leadership and bargaining committee — despite the fact that the BCMEA knows full well we received a 96 per cent mandate to take job action if needed,” union president Frank Morena said in a statement.
The employers have responded by calling the complaint “another meritless claim,” adding the final offer to the union that includes a 19.2 per cent wage increase over a four-year term remains on the table.
“The final offer has been on the table for over a week and represents a fair and balanced proposal for employees, and if accepted would end this dispute,” the employers’ statement says. “The offer does not require any concessions from the union.”
The union says the offer does not address the key issue of staffing requirement at the terminals as the port introduces more automation to cargo loading and unloading, which could potentially require fewer workers to operate than older systems.
The Port of Vancouver is the largest in Canada and has seen a number of labour disruptions, including two instances involving the rail and grain storage sectors earlier this year.
A 13-day strike by another group of workers at the port last year resulted in the disruption of a significant amount of shipping and trade.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
The Royal Canadian Legion says a new partnership with e-commerce giant Amazon is helping boost its veterans’ fund, and will hopefully expand its donor base in the digital world.
Since the Oct. 25 launch of its Amazon.ca storefront, the legion says it has received nearly 10,000 orders for poppies.
Online shoppers can order lapel poppies on Amazon in exchange for donations or buy items such as “We Remember” lawn signs, Remembrance Day pins and other accessories, with all proceeds going to the legion’s Poppy Trust Fund for Canadian veterans and their families.
Nujma Bond, the legion’s national spokesperson, said the organization sees this move as keeping up with modern purchasing habits.
“As the world around us evolves we have been looking at different ways to distribute poppies and to make it easier for people to access them,” she said in an interview.
“This is definitely a way to reach a wider number of Canadians of all ages. And certainly younger Canadians are much more active on the web, on social media in general, so we’re also engaging in that way.”
Al Plume, a member of a legion branch in Trenton, Ont., said the online store can also help with outreach to veterans who are far from home.
“For veterans that are overseas and are away, (or) can’t get to a store they can order them online, it’s Amazon.” Plume said.
Plume spent 35 years in the military with the Royal Engineers, and retired eight years ago. He said making sure veterans are looked after is his passion.
“I’ve seen the struggles that our veterans have had with Veterans Affairs … and that’s why I got involved, with making sure that the people get to them and help the veterans with their paperwork.”
But the message about the Amazon storefront didn’t appear to reach all of the legion’s locations, with volunteers at Branch 179 on Vancouver’s Commercial Drive saying they hadn’t heard about the online push.
Holly Paddon, the branch’s poppy campaign co-ordinator and bartender, said the Amazon partnership never came up in meetings with other legion volunteers and officials.
“I work at the legion, I work with the Vancouver poppy office and I go to the meetings for the Vancouver poppy campaign — which includes all the legions in Vancouver — and not once has this been mentioned,” she said.
Paddon said the initiative is a great idea, but she would like to have known more about it.
The legion also sells a larger collection of items at poppystore.ca.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 9, 2024.
