According to the owners of wage-cutting, price-fixing Loblaw Companies Ltd, Canada’s largest food retailer, the company’s soon-to-be-former CEO Galen Weston Jr was underpaid for his performance in 2022. Evidently, it makes sense to celebrate and reward those who make a killing when regular working people everywhere are struggling. To make this sort of logic work, one must aggressively gloss over the relationship between the celebrants and the consumers who made this profit bonanza possible — that is, the working people who have had to suffer outrageous grocery bills.

Weston’s increased payout, totaling $11.7 million last year, has put Canada’s self-described “face of inflation” on the defensive — and for good reason. The scandal is a reminder that the payouts enjoyed by Weston, and all other owners of capital, do not fall from the sky; they come from exploitation. CEOs like Weston are not lapping their employees in labor and time spent on the job. Such grotesque earnings are a result of either price gouging or wage and benefit cuts.