Canadian Laywer Magazine quotes Toronto and Montreal lawyers Gordon Raman, Stephen Erlichman and Marie-Christine Valois in an article on ESG and Diversity Disclosure.
There is a growing consensus towards gender diversity disclosure concerning visible minorities and other under-represented groups, but lawyers at Fasken Martineau Dumoulin LLP say the regulatory environment remains unclear.
“The CSA is asking the members of the business community to take a stance on two different proposals,” says partner Marie-Christine Valois. “Usually, you would have one proposal, and then the business community would make suggestions and provide some ways to improve the proposal. But in this case, the business community is being asked to take a stand.”
Gordon Raman, chair of the firm’s ESG and sustainability practice, points out that “the regulators themselves seem to have diverging views on the scope of diversity disclosure, and they’ve kind of thrown their hands up and said, ‘We don’t think we can really resolve this, so we’re [leaving] it up to the business community . . . to see where they want us to land on this.’”
Partner Stephen Erlichman says that while it’s not surprising that there are diverging views among securities regulators, he thinks that “we’re going to end up with very divergent views from commentators on these two proposals, both from the institutional investor community as well as from the corporate community.” It will be unlikely, he adds, that there will be consensus on going with proposal A or B.
