Dear reader,

Ooh, juicy! Can’t wait to read it but will respectfully decline. We got a lot of that in our outreach for this month’s cover story, “Who Earns What.” When it comes to salaries in this city, the sentiment is consistent: everyone wants to know and no one wants to say.

Our lead reporter, Anthony Milton, began by taking the courageously direct route of contacting subjects, saying something to the effect of “Hello! How much are you pulling in these days?” He next dug in to the Sunshine List and public-company proxies. After that, it was a matter of working inside sources and gathering informed estimates, followed by another email: “Here’s our best guess. Care to confirm or deny?”

We took the same approach 13 years ago, when we last compiled a salary survey. Those were the early days of the Rob Ford mayoralty (annual salary: $167,700), when the biggest-name Leaf, Dion Phaneuf, made $6.6 million per year; the charter bank CEOs each pulled in roughly $10.5 million; and Drake made a paltry $3.8 million.

In the years since, plenty has changed. Mayor Olivia Chow earns $225,304. The highest-paid Leaf, Auston Matthews, pulls in nearly $23 million per year. David McKay, the CEO of RBC, makes $15 million (including bonuses). And our best math puts Drake’s annual earnings at close to $70 million.

Below the surface of all these big numbers lie searing insights about power, the economy and the way wealth is distributed in 2024. The most glaring of those takeaways is the swelling of the one per cent. There are now 18 billionaires in Toronto. One noteworthy addition is Shopify founder Tobias Lütke, who earns a $1 salary but is worth $7.4 billion. One stratum down, the filthy rich are doing just fine too. The term “centimillionaire” has entered the lexicon. In Toronto, that club now has 192 members.

Meanwhile, the cost of living has surged, and wages lag woefully behind inflation. Is it so surprising that Metro grocery store workers went on strike last summer? Or that the TTC rank and file keep threatening to walk off the job? Or that part-time AGO staff who earn a pittance took to the picket lines protesting, among other things, the salary of their CEO (Stephan Jost, $404,004)?

Placing these storylines alongside mammoth earnings is provocative and uncomfortable. People in positions to change the status quo, like Doug Ford, surely don’t appreciate the glare of this spotlight. At the same time, his government recently passed legislation requiring job postings to state salary ranges, a long-overdue development. Really, we’re only following his lead.

—Malcolm Johnston, editor-in-chief

In today’s edition of This City: the stories behind Toronto’s top salaries, a 46-year-old educational assistant whose date ordered her a salad and told her to get liposuction, and more.

For all of our city coverage, visit torontolife.com or subscribe to our print edition.

Who Earns What

Money is on everyone’s lips these days—the exorbitant price of food, gas and shelter; the stagnating state of our wages; the ever-expanding income gap—so it seemed like the perfect moment to resurrect our city-wide salary survey. Here, you’ll find out who’s squeaking by, who’s maxing out their RRSPs and who’s buy-an-archipelago rich. You’ll read about the CEOs who draw $1 salaries but have eye-popping perks, the public servants who make more than the mayor, and the city’s newest crop of athletes, who should probably, definitely be asking for a raise.