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 in 2023, 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. 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.”
And yet, according to the Edelman Trust Barometer1
conducted in 2024 among the Canadian population, 59% of respondents believe
that business leaders deliberately try to mislead people by disseminating information they know to be erroneous or grossly
exaggerated. There is a marked distrust of traditional leaders and business leaders.
For all of these reasons, the Bank must publicly disclose the non-confidential data of its country-by-country report on a yearly basis.
Given that this proposal has received a high percentage (10.70%) of votes in favour in the past, we are tabling it again.