FAIR Canada and the Canadian Coalition for Good Governance (CCGG) hosted Mr. Jean-Aymon Massie, President of the French Association of Corporate Governance (the Association) in Toronto on September 18, 2009. The Association promotes the exchange of information among institutional, retail and employee shareholders. Its areas of focus include: corporate governance, ethics, and sustainable development. The Association’s thirteen-member board includes individuals with legal, engineering, banking, investor relations and economic backgrounds.

During the meeting, Mr. Massie presented the most recent newsletter of the Association, which calls for shareholders to take on the role of private regulators. Mr. Massie noted that governments and regulators did not do enough to prevent the recent financial crisis, and that shareholders should audit regulators and advocate for better corporate governance.

This audit could be undertaken by institutional shareholders, or by organizations with an interest in the area of shareholder proposals and voting. Examples include ISS-Metrics, Ethos, and Manifest.

Attendees at the presentation included Ermanno Pascutto and Stephen Griggs, Executive Directors of FAIR Canada and the CCGG, respectively. Representatives from the boards and senior staff of Fair Canada and the CCGG were also in attendance, as well as representatives from the Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board, the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada, the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System and the OPSEU Pension Trust.

More recently, Mr. Massie wrote an article in the March 2010 edition of “Analyse Fiancière”, recommending that shareholders act immediately to audit corporate governance at companies worldwide as well as regulation.