SUPPORTING STATEMENT: For many years, the Bank has received from MÉDAC — and now from Vancity — several shareholder proposals requesting the
calculation and disclosure of pay ratios.
Despite the substantial number of votes cast in support of these proposals, the Bank still does not disclose its global pay ratio,
something that has been mandatory for some time now in the United States and that several companies are already doing here in
Canada.
Naturally, many arguments have been raised against disclosing this ratio. Even though pay ratios should be published for all employees
pursuant to the Global Reporting Initiative (GRI) standards,1
the public disclosure of non-confidential information of the
“country-by-country reporting”— Action 13 2 of the OECD/G20’s Inclusive Framework on Base Erosion and Profit Sharing (BEPS 3), an
international initiative to which the government has subscribed — would allow for a meaningful calculation of pay ratios that would
help better interpret the global pay ratios by enriching the description of the underlying context.
Furthermore, disclosing such non-confidential data to the public at large — as is incidentally the case in several other countries,
including in Europe — would be an exercise in transparency, goodwill and good faith that would directly support the fight against tax
avoidance, tax evasion, “tax havens” and other “lenient legislation.”
For all of these reasons, the Bank must publicly disclose the non-confidential data of its country-by-country report on a yearly basis.