Regulators check in with TSX-listed companies a year after ‘comply and explain’ plan implemented.
Just under half of 722 TSX-listed companies have at least one woman on their board of directors, and progress in getting them to draft policies to recruit more female directors has been scant.
That’s according to a review by Canadian Securities Administrators of companies who have completed their fiscal year since voluntary guidelines on women directors were introduced last year.
The percentage of companies who have at least one female director is at 49 per cent, up from 42 per cent in 2013.
The provincial regulators found just 30 per cent of large companies with market capitalization above $2 billion have adopted a written policy for identifying and nominating women to the board and half of them had created the policy in the past year.
Among the smaller companies and in some sectors, there were far fewer women on boards.
The review found:
Utilities and companies in the retail sector had the highest number of women on their boards, while mining, oil and gas and technology companies were less likely to have female directors.
Securities regulators in Ontario, Quebec, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador, the Northwest Territories, Nunavut and Yukon adopted a “comply and explain” scheme for reporting on gender diversity on boards, meaning there were no firm targets, but companies were required to explain their policies.
The guidance issued last year requires listed companies to disclose whether they have adopted targets regarding women on their board or in executive positions, but very few had set such targets.
Just 49 companies, or seven per cent, said they had a target to raise the number of women on their boards and just 11 (two per cent) had targets for women in the executive suite.
Most of the companies told regulators they had not set targets because candidates are selected on the basis of merit.
Michelle de Cordova, director of corporate engagement for fund manager NEI Investments, says she was surprised that this largely discredited argument was still being advanced.
“There’s a lot of research pointing to this correlation between diversity on the board and the performance of companies,” said de Cordova.
“Given that correlation argument, we would respectfully say that the companies citing this meritocracy argument don’t really get it … If there is a correlation between better diversity performance and better corporate performance, a shareholder should want there to be better diversity performance.”
By CBC News
A desire from younger workers to earn high salaries early in their careers is a desire based on needs and not wants, data suggests. When asked about the main reasons for compensation increases, 31% said to pay for all their bills and expenses and 25% said to save money for the future.
At a recent training I was facilitating, I invited people to ask me anything anonymously using polling technology. While the questions always give me great insight into where people are struggling with issues of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI), this question seemed more universal: “What do I do if my manager is not inclusive?”
Our society’s tendency to look to men for expertise is one of the things that holds women back in our careers. But we can all help give women’s knowledge and accomplishments greater visibility, which will cause people of all genders to view women as experts and turn to women for expertise more.
