10 Top Canadian Boards According to Visible Minority and Aboriginal Representation

Last week I wrote about the top 10 Canadian boards according to gender representation and how as a Canadian call centre that valued CSR business values, reports that bring attention to diversity are of particular importance to us. I’ve also featured other reports based on Canadian businesses in a variety of CSR categories like the  50 Best Corporate Citizens in Canada 2012, the 30 Top Green Organizations in Canada According to Employee Engagement, the 55 Greenest Canadian Employers 2012, the 50 Top Diversity Employers in Canada 2012, the Top 50 Canadian CSR Business List and Canada’s Top Employers for 2013.

Today I’m featuring the top ten Canadian boards according to visible minority & aboriginal representation that was compiled and published by Corporate Knights (CK). CK “is a media, research and financial products company focused on quantifying and animating clean capitalism drivers for decision makers.” Clean Capitalism is defined as “an economic system in which prices incorporate social, economic and ecological benefits and costs, and actors know the full impacts of their marketplace actions.” CK operates with a vision “to provide information empowering markets to foster a better world.”

The methodology used by CK was the same formula used to determine the gender diversity ranking and it’s based on data obtained “from fiscal 2011 and is for the 130 public and private companies in the universe considered for the Best 50 Corporate Citizens in Canada. CK looked at the percentage of board members that are [visible minority and/or aboriginal], and found the percentage based on total directors assessed.”

According to the CK ranking, the top ten Canadian boards according to visible minority & aboriginal representation are:

1. Husky Energy Inc – Sector: energy. Score: 50%
2. Teck Resources Ltd – Sector: materials. Score: 21.43%
3. Yamana Gold Inc – Sector: gold. Score: 20%
4. Manitoba Hydro – Sector: financials – Sector: Utilities. Score: 18.18%
5. Mountain Equipment Co-op – Sector: consumer discretionary. Score: 14.29%
6. Thomson Reuters Corp – Sector: Consumer Discretionary. Score: 14.29%
7. Bank of Nova Scotia – Sector: financials. Score: 14.29%
8. Barrick Gold Corp – Sector: gold. Score: 14.29%
9. Silver Wheaton Corp – Sector: silver. Score: 14.29%
10. Sears Canada Inc – Sector: department stores. Score: 33.33%

This statistic of the percentage of visible minorities and aboriginal people on corporate boards is important because “Canadians belonging to a visible minority group is set to grow from 16 per cent in 2006 to between 29 and 32 per cent by 2030.” Canada has always been looked upon as a mosaic and our corporate environment needs to be reflective of the polity at large. Even though there are many initiatives that are geared towards advancing the diversification in corporate boardrooms, still “72 per cent of Canadian boards fail to provide any representation.”

Given the discrepancy between the first and fourth place, it shows how much ground there is to cover when it comes to minority representation. In fact, it illustrates that this needs to be seriously addressed as a corporate objective and a concerted effort is required for any real progress to be made. As was the case with gender diversity, Canada can and should do better.

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Miratel Solutions is a Toronto call centre, eBusiness, and letter shop mail house specializing in professional fundraising services including telephone fundraising, online fundraising, lottery services, donation caging, donation processing and other donor management services. We are committed to our CSR business values in all contact centre services and mail house operations and advancing the missions of the nonprofits we proudly serve.