The Globe and Mail reports in its Thursday edition that a review of the past 10 years of compensation trends reveals that "say-on-pay" proposals on shareholder ballots are showing signs of success. The Globe's Janet McFarland writes that more executive pay features are tied to performance than in the past, and companies are providing clearer explanations to justify their pay decisions. Michel Magnan, an accounting professor at Concordia University who specializes in pay analysis, said that compensation appears more performance-based, but the real measure of risk lies in how difficult the targets are to reach. Perhaps the clearest benefit of the say-on-pay era is that it has reined in the outliers, or "mitigated the most egregious cases," according to Prof. Magnan. Several big gold miners -- Barrick, Yamana and Eldorado -- all lost say-on-pay votes in past years when pay spiked and performance was weak. They introduced changes to their pay programs, and got positive votes. Consultant Paul Gryglewicz said even a few examples of failed votes led to broader reforms in the mining world. In 2017, median total compensation fell 1.4 per cent at mining companies, while median total shareholder returns rose 17 per cent.