Publications 

17 October 2023

Family Controlled Companies: Drivers of Canadian Economy

To listen to the full panel with Louis Audet (board member of IGOPP), about the most recent report of IGOPP on family businesses, please click here or on the image below (the panel’s duration is 43 minutes):

17 October 2023

Family Controlled Companies: Key Drivers of Canadian Economic Sustainability – Panel

To listen to the full panel with Louis Audet (board member of IGOPP), about the most recent report of IGOPP on family businesses, please click here or on the image below (the panel’s duration is 43 minutes):

13 October 2023

The performance of Canadian controlled companies listed on the S&P/TSX

Family-run businesses are the cornerstone of market economies. These companies are often imbued with a strong culture rooted in the values of their founder, a culture that develops and strengthens over time, sometimes even beyond the first generations who succeed one another at the helm of the business. They tend to make decisions with a […]

28 August 2023

No clear consensus on diversity disclosures

Securities regulators may agree on the need to improve issuers’ diversity disclosure, but they can’t agree on how to achieve it. A public consultation on the issue so far isn’t building consensus. In April, the Canadian Securities Administrators (CSA) proposed changes to corporate governance requirements, publishing two approaches for expanding diversity disclosures beyond gender. The Ontario […]

1 July 2023

Memorandum of IGOPP on Regulations 58-101 and 58-201

“Any organization governed by a board of directors must strive to constitute a board that is both legitimate and credible.”[1] A board’s credibility is indispensable to its effectiveness and “[its] credibility is measured not only by its in-depth knowledge of the company’s industry and its markets, of its business model, and its value-creation drivers, but […]

16 May 2023

Is the Sun Setting on Dual Class Share Structures?

Teck’s Dual Class Amendment Teck Resources Limited (“Teck”) recently announced that it will be collapsing its dual class share structure (“DCSS”) by introducing a six-year sunset for the multiple voting rights attached to its Class A common shares (the “Dual Class Amendment”). An overwhelming majority of Teck’s shareholders voted in favour of the Dual Class […]

1 May 2023

South African prison scandal raises concerns over Caisse’s G4S connections

[…] Even before this latest scandal, questions were being raised about why a Canadian corporate pillar like the Caisse would jump into the security industry and, later, associate itself with a company like G4S, which has a checkered recent history. Critics say the pension giant, which administers the retirement funds for thousands of public-sector employees, has no business […]

29 December 2022

Companies should disclose board members’ spoken languages to investors, Quebec group Médac says

A leading investors’ rights group in Quebec is pressing publicly traded Canadian companies to reveal what languages their board members speak, saying the disclosure is needed to ensure rising expectations for corporate diversity are being met. The call comes from Montreal-based Mouvement d’éducation et de défense des actionnaires, known as Médac. The group says the […]

9 June 2022

Shopify Shareholders ‘Approve’ Controversial “Founder Share” – With the Help of the Existing DCS

The 2022 Shopify AGM put the spotlight on two controversial theories for driving corporate success: the founder-CEO and multi-class share structures. When it went public in 2015, Shopify’s multi-class structure was fairly standard for an aspirational tech unicorn, if still unusual relative to capital markets as a whole. In recent years an increasing proportion of […]

2 May 2022

Caisse bows out of Montreal light rail project

Canadian pension fund giant Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec is stepping away from a proposed new $10-billion light rail line in eastern Montreal after encountering seemingly insurmountable difficulties with the design of the downtown portion of the project. Quebec and Montreal will take over leadership of the venture, the two governments said in […]

11 April 2022

Shopify shares rise as tech company announces 10-for-1 stock split

Shopify Inc. co-founder, chair and chief executive Tobias Lutke has three young children. The billionaire is willing to give up the opportunity to pass along the company to his offspring in exchange for maintaining control for as long he works at the online commerce giant. Ottawa-based Shopify, Canada’s largest tech company, announced on Monday it plans […]

5 December 2021

Couche-Tard’s end of special voting rights will be closely watched by critics, defenders of dual-class share structures

n will set this week on the special voting rights held by the four founders of Alimentation Couche-Tard Inc., leaving the Canadian convenience store giant more exposed to investor pressure than ever before. Its fate will be closely watched by both critics and defenders of dual class share structures. Laval, Que.-based Couche-Tard is one of […]

8 November 2021

Rogers is ‘worst case scenario’ for otherwise profitable dual-class share structures

A recent boardroom clash at Rogers Communications Inc. has revealed the governance risk associated with dual-class share companies, but experts say businesses with that structure can be hard to avoid for investors because they’re big profit generators. Companies with dual-class shares issue different sets of common shares that have different voting and control rights. This […]

5 November 2021

Language office eyes probe after Air Canada English-only speech

Michael Rousseau’s first speech to business leaders in Montreal was supposed to be his coming out party, a chance for Air Canada new chief executive to build credibility and tell the story of an airline – a pillar of the Quebec economy – in recovery mode. Instead, the CEO’s English-only talk, during which he revealed that […]

4 November 2021

Investors call for limits on dual-class shares in light of Rogers battle

Canadian investor organizations want stricter requirements for companies with dual-class stocks to trade on public exchanges amid a growing debate about the drawbacks of such shares and a controversy over voting rights at Rogers Communications Inc. Dual-class stock structuring – where different classes of shares in a single company have different voting rights – has […]

12 February 2021

The quest for diversity of boards of directors and in senior management of public corporations

In June 2009, IGOPP published a Policy Paper on “The Status of Women on Boards of Directors in Canada: Calling for Change”. Almost 12 years later, the issue of diversity on boards of directors still remains partly unresolved. Indeed, women’s representation on boards of directors has doubled during this period [from 15% in 2008 to […]