Despite serving just two months on Canadian National’s board of directors, former Prime Minister Jean Charest received nearly $70,000 in compensation from the rail company last year.
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Mr. Charest received $68,987 for his short term of office, which began on January 25, 2022 and ended on April 1, 2022. He had subsequently resigned from his position as director to begin the race for leadership of Canada’s Conservative Party. The company did not say how many board meetings he attended in those two months.
CN CEO Shauneen Bruder, meanwhile, won nearly $580,000, a sum that she received entirely in shares of the company, while CEO Tracy Robinson was entitled to a total of $13.7 million in compensation, we learn in the information circular published for the Annual Meeting on April 23.
Three out of 11 bilinguals
CN also revealed for the first time on Wednesday the language skills of candidates for board member positions. Only three of the 11 candidates claim to be fluent in French. That is not yet the case for Ms Robinson, who said she took French classes when she was appointed head of CN in early 2022.
It should be noted that although CN’s headquarters are in Montreal, Tracy Robinson still divides her time between metropolitan Quebec and Alberta, where she previously worked.
Last year, CN was heavily criticized in Quebec for not having any French-speaking directors for six months following the departure of Jean Charest. Michel Letellier, CEO of Quebec-based renewable energy company Innergex, has been a member of CN’s board of directors since October 1.
The railway company, which has been subject to the Official Languages Act since 1969, has just registered with the Office québécois de la langue française under the law respecting the official and common language of Quebec, which came into force last year.