Women slowly gain ground on boards
The number of women on the boards of Canadian companies has inched up in the nearly two years since securities regulators introduced new requirements aimed at boosting gender diversity, but still falls well short of the 30-per-cent female representation targeted by advocacy groups.
Overall, women occupied 12 per cent of total board seats in the sample of 677 companies collected by prov- incial securities regulators, up from 11 per cent a year earlier, the Canadian Securities Administrators said Wednesday in the second report published to track the progress under the new “comply or explain” regime.
“We’re hoping we can see real progress towards 20 or 25 per cent” over the next 18 months, said Maureen Jensen, chair of the Ontario Securities Commission, the regulator that led the charge to introduce the new gender diversity focused disclosure regime across the country.
Regulators in seven provinces and three territories will assess the progress at the end of three years, and some have suggested imposing hard targets for the representation of women on boards if the current measures aren’t considered to have done enough. Alberta’s securities regulator said this month it will hold hearings with an eye to adopting the existing rules for companies in that province.
The rise in gender diversity since the rules were put in place across most of the country is occurring at companies of all sizes, with large ones “still leading the way,” the CSA document says.
But even at the 42 lar- gest companies, which have a market capitalization of more than $ 10 billion, women filled less than a quarter of the board seats — 23 per cent compared to 21 per cent last year. The next tier, those with a market cap of more than $ 1 billion, had boards where women held 18 per cent of the seats, up from 16 per cent.
“I’m di s a ppointed it hasn’t gone quicker, but I’m still optimistic because the progress is still being made,” Jensen said.
For example, fewer than half the Canadian companies captured in the regulators’ first survey last year had at least one woman on their boards. However, in the latest report this week, the percentage of firms that have at least one woman on the board has climbed to a majority, at 55 per cent, up from 49 per cent last year.
Jensen said she feels companies are missing an opportunity to increase diversity when it comes to filling board vacancies.
She noted that “just 15 per cent” of the 521 board seat vacancies during the year were filled by women.
“Without an i mprovement in the vacancy fill rate, we will never reach 30 per cent female board representation,” Jensen said.
The regulators found that less than 10 per cent of companies set targets for the representation of women on their boards. That figure stood at nine per cent in the latest tally, up from seven per cent last year, according to the CSA document.
But those that did set targets tended to have more representation of women on their boards. Companies with board targets have an average of 25 per cent female board representa- tion compared to 10 per cent at companies that don’t set targets.
“What gets measured gets done,” said Jensen. “It’s clear that the companies that set targets, the ones that try to meet those targets, are the ones that make significant progress.”
The sample of companies reviewed by regulators does not include venture issuers, nor does it include the country’s big banks because their fiscal year ends fall outside the survey’s parameters. The banks have generally be an “early adopter of diversity initiatives,” the CSA noted.