Canadian bank shareholders are a churlish lot. One might have expected some gratitude for banks' positive first-quarter earnings reports at a time when many of the world's financial institutions are teetering on the brink of collapse.
Instead, management and boards of directors were raked over the coals this week as shareholders demanded, and appear to have won, a say in executive compensation. The usual cast of gadflies and activists that frequently heckles annual meetings -- and whose role is normally limited to delaying proceedings by demanding secret ballot votes on everything from reading of the minutes to appointing auditors -- were supported in their "say on pay" efforts by institutional investors, including Doug Pearce, chairman of the B.C. Investment Management Corp., which invests about $85 billion of provincial public sector pension funds.
