A survey of Canadian company boards found that women held only 15% of board seats, visible minorities held 5.3% of seats, people with disabilities held 2.9% of seats, and aboriginals held just 0.8% of seats. However, 73% of corporate board members and 71% of charity board members believed their boards were already diverse. The report highlighted a gap between the reality of lack of diversity and boards' perceptions of being diverse. It also found that increasing diversity on boards could lead to greater corporate social responsibility.

1. Companies believe boards are
diverse, even when they aren’t
B. C. fares well in diversity report on Canadian businesses
 The Vancouver Sun
 17 Nov 2011
 BY BRIAN MORTON bmorton@ vancouversun. com
GLENN BAGLO/
PNG FILESWomen, visible minorities and aboriginals are still badly under- represented on the boards
of Canadian companies, a survey shows.
If approximately one in seven of a company’s board seats are held by women, is that
good enough?
How about one in 20 for visible minorities, or less than one per cent for aboriginals?
Apparently so, according to most board respondents surveyed in the Canadian
Board Diversity Council’s second annual report card on board diversity, which was
released Wednesday.
The report’s survey of 218 charity board members and 164 Top 500 board members
found that 15 per cent of board seats were held by women, 5.3 per cent by visible
minorities, 2.9 per cent by people with disabilities and just 0.8 per cent by aboriginals.
The numbers varied according to industry and type of board.
Charity boards, for example, are much more likely to have women members, with
40 per cent of board seats being occupied by women.

2. For corporate boards, women are best represented on boards of utility companies (
21.7 per cent) and finance companies ( 19.6 per cent), and least represented on mining,
oil and gas company boards ( 6.6 per cent).
Despite that, 73 per cent of the Top 500 board members surveyed felt their board
was diverse, while 71 per cent of charitable board members felt the same.
Even 60 per cent of mining and oil and gas companies thought their board was
diverse.
“The gap in the reality and perception in board members in how they think in terms
of their boards being diverse is interesting,” the council’s senior coordinator, Michelle
Aguayo, said in an interview. “We were very surprised. In their opinion, they believe the
boards are diverse. But for the most part, they’re still struggling to support diversity.”
Nevertheless, the council’s founder, Pamela Jeffery, said in an introduction to the
study she found it encouraging that 47 per cent of corporate board members and 61 per
cent of charity board members identify the issue of board diversity as being very
important.
In a separate report released Wednesday evening, the council analyzed the boards of
the largest 250 corporations included in the Report on Business 1,000 and identified 56
as board diversity leaders. Leading the pack was Husky Energy whose 14- member
board includes eight members who are of a visible minority, two of them women. Five
British Columbia companies were on the list, led by Silvercorp Metals, whose six-
member board includes three from a visible minority, and Spectra Energy Transmission
which has a three- member board that includes one woman and one member of a visible
minority. Teck Resources, HSBC Bank Canada and Capstone Mining were the other
three B. C. companies to make the list.
Elizabeth Watson, former chair of the governance committee for the Institute of
Corporate Directors and president of Vancouver- based Watson Advisors Inc., a
business governance and leadership advisory group, said in an interview that the council
report highlights several issues, including the fact that women are under- represented in
Canada’s boardrooms.
“The numbers of women on boards hasn’t moved significantly over 10 years. B. C. is
average, close to 15 per cent. Alberta is about six per cent,” Watson said.
One reason many boards believe they are diverse is because their definition of
diverse might differ from council’s, she said. Another is that a 15- member board might
have one or two women now when a few years ago it was all male.
In another study released Wednesday, Catalyst along with Harvard Business School
found that having more women on boards could lead to more corporate social
responsibility.
The report said that in 2007, the average charitable donations of companies with
three or more female directors were 28 times higher than companies with no female
directors.