Since the Globe and Mail published its annual survey of CEO salaries and compensation for 2001, revealing a 54-per-cent increase in total compensation despite the bloodletting in the stock market, incensed shareholders with pockets turned inside-out have been pitching eggs, the popular target being that convoy of shiny BMWs on Springbank Road.

The poor CEOs, who are just trying to scratch out a living and feed the fam on $83 million a year or whatever, have been reluctant, for obvious reasons, to return fire against the angry lynch mob.

Enough already! We think it’s time the CEOs put up their dukes and fought back – through an agent.

Obscenely rich hockey players have agents to explain their salaries, and we think it’s time CEOs had proper representation.

So we’re here to represent the David O’Briens of corporate Canada.

First, we’ll go to bat for O’Brien, the Calgary boss who was chief of Canadian Pacific before it split into five separate companies. He ought to be spitting mad.

Never mind that stuff about O’Brien, now the chairman of EnCana Energy, topping the Globe’s list of 100 highest-paid CEOs with a total compensation of $83,141,378, including $34,610,777 in cashed stock options.

As the hockey players like to say, don’t forget about market value. It should be noted that it was not O’Brien who was engineering the gravy train last year in terms of base salary. That was O’Brien’s old sparring partner at CN Rail, Paul Tellier, whose stipend was $1,400,452. Poor David had to settle for a mere $875,209 in base salary.

So listen up, EnCana directors!

Of course, O’Brien wasn’t the only underpaid CEO.

Take Kirk Mandy, for instance. The boss of Zarlink Semiconductor (formerly Mitec) pulled down $8,905,911 in total compensation. This may seem like a lot of dough, until you consider what Mandy accomplished.

Zarlink lost $317 million, which tells you just how busy Mandy must have been. You try to lose $317 million in 365 days. No wonder he resigned. No time to shop.

Calgary’s Nancy Southern should also seek out an agent.

Canadian Utilities calls Nancy a co-CEO. Yet, the other co-CEO, who happens to be her father Ron, made $1.3 million more than his daughter in total compensation (incidentally, Canadian Utilities still managed a profit in 2001 despite shelling out $6,527,436 for the CEO’s post alone).

Nancy made more than any other woman in Canada in base salary, $616,600, but dad made $849,640.

This case should be a cinch in arbitration.

You think Nancy’s the only Calgarian who got a raw deal?

Think again. Jim Shaw, CEO of Shaw Communications, had to scrimp by on a piddling $1,827,309 (total compensation) while his father, J.R., was rolling in it, having received a $4.6-million bonus from the company that lost $147 million in 2001.

Geez, the poor kid didn’t even get a bonus. You buy lunch, J.R.!

The dollar sign that leaps off the page belongs to Clive Beddoe, the CEO of WestJet, whose meagre wage jives with the airline’s penny-pinching philosophy.

While most big-time CEOs earn a base salary in the $500,000 to $1-million range, Beddoe makes less in base salary than some oilpatch receptionists – $251,923 (Beddoe did check in at No. 34 on the list, courtesy of a stock-option gain of $2,798,105).

But call Clive the pauper of corporate Canada and he’d probably take it as a compliment. Now, there’s a chap who really could use an agent. And one who would probably turn one down flat.

* STREET TALK: Pravin Banker, principal of LDL Bond Watch and The Financial Network, who accurately forecast IBM’s accounting woes and Tyco’s financial crisis, is thumping the tub for gold, which continues to flourish with its price recently vaulting to $310 US per ounce.

“Enron has revealed the ugly side of manipulation and collusion and the risks inherent in unserviceable debt burdens, Tyco being the last straw, and Asian faith is shaken. They (foreigners) are reverting back to the age-old haven and tempting U.S. institutions to follow in their wake, buying gold,” says Banker.

How hot are gold stocks?

Dundee Securities mining analyst Joe Hamilton’s top three picks for the Edge’s 3 Stars feature in December – Barrick Gold, Meridian Gold and Kinross Gold - are up a combined 89 per cent. Kinross has nearly tripled.



* SAGE ADVICE: “Prosperity is a great teacher, adversity a greater.”

- William Hazlitt.

HOT ALBERTA STOCK: Heritage Oil

HOC.A-TSX $2.66 Up 61 cents (+29.8%) on 85,900 shares (for week ending April 26). You literally had to go to the well to find any action on the upside during a horrid week for the markets. All seems well at Heritage Oil, where the share price spiked to a 12-month high on encouraging 2001 financials. Heritage's production increased 25 per cent last year and its oil and gas revenue was up 11 per cent. The stock has more than tripled since the beginning of the year.

COLD ALBERTA STOCK: Olympia Energy

OLY-TSX $3.35 Down 86 cents (-20.4%) on 2,887,500 shares (for week ending April 26). Junior oil-and-gas stocks have been on fire and Olympia has been one of the leaders. The share price had doubled in recent weeks, so a dip in the 20-per-cent range wasn't all that surprising. The company also announced recently that its 2001 profits were down, with annual net earnings of $9,629 compared to $17,103,000 the previous year.