Back in October, the Canadian Securities Administrators published Staff Notice 58-309 – Staff Review of Women on Boards and in Executive Officer Positions – Compliance with NI 58-101 Disclosure of Corporate Governance Practices. The notice used results from a review of the corporate governance disclosure regarding women on boards and in executive officer positions for three consecutive years of 660 non-venture issuers. The CSA has now published the underlying data from the participating jurisdictions for this report, which is available here.

As a reminder, this report provides useful updates on the progress being made by issuers regarding gender equality in executive and director positions. It noted a significant increase in the percentage of issuers that have adopted a policy relating to the representation of women on their board. Issuers that have adopted a diversity policy had a higher percentage of women on their boards compared to issuers without one. Of the issuers sampled, 61% of issuers have at least one women on the board as well as increases in the total number of board seats and executive positions held by women. 

Besides being Shorecrest Group’s co-founder and managing director, Penny Rice works as the technical advisor to the CSA on the development of the current proxy protocols.