My name is Paul Desmarais, Jr. Next to me are Mr. Jeffrey Orr, President and CEO, and Stéphane Lemay, to my left, Vice President, General Counsel, and Secretary. As Chairman of the Board, I am responsible for chairing this meeting. Mr. Lemay will act as Secretary. After four years of holding the annual meeting, virtually, it's almost incredible to think how much time has elapsed in that mode. We're really delighted to welcome you in person today. We would also like to welcome those of you viewing the meeting through the webcast, and obviously a special welcome to those of you who are here in person. We also wish to state that, in the absence of exceptional circumstances, the company intends to continue to hold its annual shareholder meetings in person. Or in a hybrid format that would include an in-person component, although, of course, it's much nicer to be able to attend in person. We understand that. We understand that, in view of what I have just said, MEDAC intends to withdraw its shareholder proposal concerning the holding of in-person meetings from the vote. We also believe that this is a good idea, and that's why that, is going to be withdrawn. At this meeting, we may make statements containing forward-looking information. I draw your attention to the cautionary statement regarding forward-looking statements, a copy of which is available outside this room or can be viewed online on our website by those watching the meeting via webcast. If you can read that on the screen, you've got really good eyesight. But anyways, Oh. Go ahead, and during the meeting, shareholders who have specific questions on a formal item of business will have the opportunity to ask those questions before we proceed to vote on the specific item, and then, of course, we'll have time for questions at the end as well. I note the persons of Mrs. Marie-Eve Héroux and Mr. Matthieu Welczynski of Deloitte, the corporation's auditors. Je nomme par la présente Madame. I hereby appoint Ms. Pina Pacifico. I'm very happy to see you again after a four-year absence, or virtual absence, and Ms. Teresa De Luca of Computershare as scrutineers for the meeting, and I ask them to submit their attendance record. Mr. Chairman, we would like to confirm that registered shareholders or proxy holders are present at this meeting, representing in person or by proxy 79.41% of the total votes eligible through this meeting. There are registered shareholders and/or proxy holders present at this meeting, representing in person or by proxy 79.41% of the total eligible votes at this meeting. Merci. Thank you. Thank you for your report. Le secrétaire, le secrétaire. The secretary has informed me that the notice of meeting and the relevant documents were sent out in compliance with the applicable regulation. I confirm the presence of a quorum and declare that the shareholders' meeting is duly convened and constituted. I also declare the ballot open for all items on the agenda. Presentation of financial statements. As permitted by applicable law, we have used Notice and Access to deliver our 2024 management proxy circular and our annual financial statements and related management discussion and analysis. Shareholders have received by mail a Notice and Access notification providing information on how to access these documents. Copies of the annual financial statements are available on our website and under our profile on SEDAR+. À ce moment-là, avant de passer aux autres items à l'ordre du jour, je. At this point, and before moving on to the other items on the agenda, I would like to invite Mr. Jeffrey Orr to make a few comments. I would like to express a profound gratitude to all our employees and management teams at Empower Corporation and at our group of companies. I also want to thank our CEO, Mr. Orr, for his outstanding leadership, in a year underscored, we have to say, by continued inflation concerns, capital market volatility, interest rate uncertainty, geopolitical tensions, as if we needed more of them, the corporation focused on the continued execution of its long-term value creation strategy. Through a prudent approach of risk management, Jeff and his team successfully navigated these headwinds and continued to deliver solid performance for our shareholders and other stakeholders. On behalf of the board, I would like to thank them for their hard work and dedication. With that, I'll ask now Mr. Orr to address the meeting. My wire up the side here. Yeah, yeah. Go ahead. Take this one. Alors, merci. Thank you, Chairman. Good morning to all of you. Thank you for being with us today, and welcome to those of you who are joining us, virtually over the web. Today, it's a pleasure to see everybody in person, as Paul and Mr. Desmarais have said, and welcome to those of you who are joining us virtually. J'ai le plaisir aujourd'hui de. I'm pleased to report to you today on developments at Power Corporation during 2023, as well as share with you a few perspectives on our progress over the past few years. When you stop to think about, as Mr. Desmarais so well pointed out, when you think about what we have all gone through together recently, it's really incredible. We all understand that that was an extraordinary period of challenge, and there were plenty of changes. We've lived through a global pandemic. War broke out in Europe and in the Middle East. We witnessed the return of rising inflation after four decades of disinflation, and central banks have responded by raising interest significantly. Well, you know, the major challenges that face our society, which is climate change, global warming. We've got an aging population where it's gonna put massive challenges on our way of life. I mean, those challenges really remain unaddressed. But rather than being overwhelmed by all of that, you know, we need to remember that people do face challenges, and they can overcome and respond to challenges. There's a great saying in the financial world is that markets need to climb a wall of worry. You know, markets are always worrying about risk, but as the world's economy has grown over the past centuries, markets have grown. And I think it's a really good analogy for the broader world. Historians will point out that humanity has faced great challenges throughout history. So while the challenges we face today are great, through focus, effort, innovation, and investment, we will overcome them. You know, we'll find solutions, we'll overcome, and we'll move forward. So against this note of caution and optimism, I wanna tell you about Power Corporation 'cause we've continued to move forward, and I believe we're better positioned today than we were just a few years ago, thanks to the extraordinary focus and the efforts of the employees across the Power Group of companies. So I'm gonna start with a quick overview of what Power Corporation is today. We're an international management company who focuses on financial services. We operate in North America, Europe, and in Asia. We're active shareholders in a group of leading insurance, retirement, wealth management, and investment businesses. Our holdings include three significant public companies. We own majority positions in Great-West Lifeco and IGM Financial. Together with the Frère family of Belgium, we have a significant position in GBL, a major European holding company. At the Power Corporation level itself, we're building two alternative asset management businesses, Sagard and Power Sustainable. Now, what all these businesses have in common is they help people build financial security. We help people plan, we help them save, we help them deal with the expected events in life as well as the unexpected events in life. And we serve our clients through well-established and emerging brands in Canada, the U.S., Europe, and in China. Our actions and our decisions are guided by our core values of trust, respect, integrity, and corporate citizenship. Now, our strategies evolve over time, but the core investing principles that have guided us for many decades remain the same. We have a long-term perspective. We are building leading franchises with attractive growth profiles. We take a very active governance role in our major companies, and we have a prudent approach to risk management, and we have a very strong financial position that goes with that. In 2019, Power Corporation announced a substantial reorganization. We've introduced a value creation strategy that is based on three levers. The first lever is to create higher organic growth at our publicly traded companies, investing in our people and in technology to enhance client experience. The second lever involves strategic acquisitions to augment our scale and our capabilities and, to participate in high-growth segments of the market. The third lever focuses on the actions we can take at the Power Corporation level and across the group to create additional value. Our value creation strategy is also about simplification. We are simplifying what we do. We are simplifying our structure. We are simplifying the way we communicate. IGM represents over 80% of the value of Power's assets and contributes almost all of our recurring income. GBL, our alternative asset management platforms and their other businesses, are focused on creating growth and net asset value rather than steady earnings. So Great-West Lifeco is the largest holding of Power Corporation by virtually any measure. The company has substantially strengthened its business over the past several years through internal investment and an active M&A agenda. As a consequence, it's achieving higher growth in earnings and higher return on shareholders' equity. Great-West Lifeco has met or exceeded the medium-term financial objectives it publicly announced a few years back. And last week, the company reported its earnings for the first quarter of 2024, and it earned base earnings in excess of CAD 1 billion in a single quarter for the first time in its history. So nowhere is the transformation of Great-West Lifeco more evident than in the United States. Emp ower's acquisitions of Personal Capital, the retirement businesses of MassMutual and Prudential extended in Power's leadership position in the market. Power now serves 18.6 million people in America. It has client assets of $1.6 trillion on the platform, and it's now the second-largest retirement provider in the U.S. Great-West Lifeco also, in 2023, announced the sale of Putnam Investments to Franklin Templeton, a world-class asset manager. We also entered into a strategic partnership with Franklin. The transaction unlocked the value of Putnam for Great-West Lifeco and allows the company to focus and continuing to build in Power. The U.S. segment is now close to emerging as the single biggest contributor to Great-West Lifeco's overall earnings. That is my water, is it? Yes. Good. Awesome. Okay. Tasted good. I don't know. I wasn't. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Great-West is also strengthening its leading Canadian businesses, following the combination of the Great-West Life Assurance Company, London Life, and Canada Life a few years back, now one company operating in Canada under the Canada Life banner. And in 2023, Canada Life completed two acquisitions, Investment Planning Council and Value Partners, in Canada, supporting its goal of becoming a leading Canadian full-service wealth provider. Great-West has implemented market-leading platforms and tools across the company to improve advisor effectiveness and client experiences. Innovation labs are operating right across the company to rapidly develop, test, and employ new technologies, including artificial intelligence labs, everywhere. The second-biggest investment that's owned by Power Corporation is IGM. It's on its own journey of internal investment and strategic repositioning. In 2023, IGM realigned its reporting into two segments, wealth management and asset management, in order to better convey the nature of its businesses. In each segment, the company has one business which is currently producing the bulk of its earnings and several businesses which represent far higher potential for growth in the future. For example, in the wealth management sector, IG Wealth Management is currently producing the bulk of the earnings, but Wealthsimple and Rockefeller are growing at far higher rates than IG Wealth and their industry peers. In the asset management sector, Mackenzie produces the majority of current earnings, but China Asset Management, which is a leader in the large and rapidly growing China Asset Management business, and Northleaf are growing at much higher rates. In 2023, IGM acquired 20.5% of Rockefeller Capital, a leading U.S. financial advisory firm. We're now its second-largest shareholder. The acquisition will advance IGM's strategy of expanding its presence in the high net worth and the ultra-high net worth space, and it represents a risk-smart way of approaching and entering the US wealth market, the biggest market in the world. IGM is well positioned for future growth. It recently announced an objective of growing its earnings by 9% over the next five years, and that's made up of 7% from IG Wealth and Mackenzie and 15% earnings growth from its higher growth investments. Maintenant, on tourne à GBL, qui a poursuivi sa stratégie. GBL continued to pursue its strategy of increasing its focus on private and alternative assets while streamlining its public portfolio. Over the past few years, GBL has increased the share of private and alternative asset holdings from 15%-35% of its total portfolio. In 2023, GBL exited three of its listed investments: GEA Group, Holcim, and Mowi. Separately, GBL realized meaningful value in one of its private investments when it facilitated the merger of Webhelp and Concentrix. GBL also continued to prioritize cash returns to shareholders, delivering over EUR 1.2 billion by way of dividends and share buybacks in 2023. Over the last four years, share buybacks amounted to EUR 2.4 billion, which is a very significant amount, and that was since the beginning of 2009. Committed to playing our part in accelerating—whoops, I have got my page is mixed up. I have a debate with Mr. Lemay every year about whether I should keep my speech in a binder or whether I should go with loose sheets. And I'm gonna listen to. I don't have it. Here. Oh, wait. Merci bien. Oh, I think it may be right there, but. Is it here? Thank you. And Mr. Lemay is going to win this debate from now on. Okay. Thank you. Merci, Hélène. Ce qui concerne les entreprises. Moving to Power's alternative asset management businesses, Sagard and Power Sustainable continued to build their platforms despite a difficult fundraising and deployment environment. Assets under management of the two platforms grew to a combined CAD 24 billion total at year-end, including unfunded commitments. The assets under management between Sagard and Power Sustainable Capital of the two platforms is a 4x multiple in four years, and that was entirely funded by third parties, not by Power Corporation, which was fully in line with our objectives. In 2023, Sagard entered into strategic partnerships with Lunate, formerly ADQ, an Abu Dhabi-based company, and Bank of Montreal. Each of these entities acquired an interest in Sagard while Great-West expanded its existing partnership with Sagard. These strategic partners have agreed to commit additional long-term capital to support Sagard's current and future investment strategies. Moreover, Sagard recently completed two acquisitions, which will further its next stage of growth. Power Sustainable continued to generate fundraising momentum. In 2023, it launched its Global Infrastructure Credit Strategy and raised total commitments of its vintage two of its Power Sustainable Energy Infrastructure partnership. Earlier this week, Power Sustainable announced a strategic long-term partnership with Great-West, allowing it to accelerate its growth and to gain a good hold on private placement markets, private banking, and sustainable energy. Energy that we have been talking about has really contributed to robust financial results in 2023. Net earnings from continuing operations were CAD 2.28 billion or CAD 3.45 a share, and earnings from continuing operations amounted to CAD 3 billion or CAD 4.47 a share. We returned CAD 2 billion of capital to our shareholders, including CAD 1.4 billion in dividends and nearly CAD 600 million in share buybacks. In March of this year, we announced a 7.1% increase in the dividend, the quarterly dividend, and that marks the 10th consecutive year of increases in the dividend that we will have paid to shareholders. Power Corporation shareholders have realized attractive total shareholder returns over the past several years, both on absolute basis and on a relative basis. At the end of 2023, for example, we had delivered strong returns of 26%, 15%, and just under 16% on a one-, three-, and five-year basis, which exceeds the returns of the Toronto Stock Exchange and the Toronto Stock Exchange Financial Subindex. Our strong results continued into the first quarter of 2024. Late yesterday afternoon, after the markets closed, we announced net earnings of CAD 758 million or CAD 1.17 per share and adjusted net earnings of CAD 1.12 per share. Let me turn my attention then to the issue of energy transition, which is a critical issue facing all of us, as I mentioned earlier in my remarks. The threat of global warming and the world's migration to more sustainable sources of energy are among the most important challenges that we all face. Managing an orderly transition, which ensures both security of supply of energy as well as economic growth, is going to be essential in order to retain and maintain the public support for the difficult journey that we're all on. Supporting engaged energy producers, encouraging alternative sources of energy, and developing the infrastructures required to facilitate their adoption is gonna be critical. As a major energy producer and exporter, Canada stands to benefit from the transition if we can create the right climate and the right conditions to attract the capital that's gonna be required. As a group, Power and our companies are committed to playing our part accelerating climate action and finding suitable solutions. At Power, despite our limited environmental footprint, we're a holding company. We continue to make every effort to conserve resources and improve energy efficiency. Disclosing one's carbon footprint is an important component of the energy transition. In 2023 was the 12th year that Power had responded to the Climate Change Questionnaire issued by CDP, a global environmental nonprofit formerly known as the Carbon Disclosure Project. In 2023, Power was among the top quartile of financial services companies globally that reached that leadership level. I'm gonna now brave going back to my original text. Hélène, don't go far away in case I actually lose more. I'll give you all that. Thank you. Have you got a second copy in case I err, okay. You do. Good. Thank you. It could happen. We continue to work with our publicly traded operating companies to report greenhouse gas emissions using a responsible and rigorous approach. So being able to measure the emissions of the companies that our companies invest in is a very difficult but necessary first step on the journey. There's various global bodies, including here in Montreal, that are developing standardized disclosure standards, and that's gonna allow companies in our group to continue to improve their own disclosure. And then finally, from an investment standpoint, we're helping finance cleaner, renewable energy projects. So Great-West itself has more than $6 billion at this point invested in wind, solar, and hydroelectric projects. We talk about Power Sustainable. It's got over 1.6 million GWh of energy in 2023 that were produced from all renewable sources. And with our clients, we're also investing in strategies that they can invest in. For example, Mackenzie is now the largest supplier in Canada for two individuals of strategies that are focused on environmental thematic opportunities. So it's a big subject one I'm sure we're gonna continue to talk about in the years ahead. Créer une entreprise. Creating a successful organization includes contributing to society in various ways, including by providing needed services and products, by creating employment opportunities, and by investing both money and time in the well-being of the communities where one operates. Power Corporation and its group companies have a long tradition of good corporate citizenship as well as active community involvement. In 2023, our group companies invested close to CAD 49 million in our communities. This impact is multiplied through the active involvement of our employees, whom we encourage to volunteer in support of the causes they care about. Another key area of focus, people and leadership. I said earlier that our success was thanks to our extraordinary efforts of our people and our leadership, and we are dedicated to attracting, developing, and retaining an engaged and diverse workforce who are united in the pursuit of our strategies and our goals. In fact, we believe over the long term, when you think about it, the quality of one's people and having a culture that's both positive and inclusive is the most important factor in determining your long-term success. Now, earlier this year, we were delighted to welcome Jake Lawrence as our Executive Vice-President and Chief Financial Officer, a role he stepped into in March. Jake has a breadth of experience, a very impressive track record, wealth of experience in financial services, and we're confident that he's gonna contribute significantly to the growth and success of Power in the future. Jake, would you just stand up and have people put eyeballs on you and recognize your presence? I guess I could have warned you that I was gonna ask you to stand. Ask her about that. In fact, I have probably lost my speech again. Where did I go with Jake here? Oh, I've got it. I'm back on track. On behalf of everyone at Power, I really wanna extend our heartfelt thanks and gratitude to our friend and colleague, Greg Tretiak. Greg's been an integral part of the corporation for 12 years as EVP and Chief Financial Officer. He's got over 40 years with our group, remarkable, including 28 years at IGM. He's made an immense contribution to the Power Group. Many of you are aware that Greg suffered a health setback last fall. And in Greg's typical determined fashion, he's making great progress. He actually played 18 holes of golf last week and beat his two playing partners. So, to Greg, a big, big thank you to all that you have done. Alors, que nous nous t. Looking to the future, we are committed to creating long-term value for shareholders, predicated on the success of our clients and our people while contributing positively to the communities in which we operate. Power's businesses are well-positioned for growth, are diversified, and are in a strong financial position. In closing, I wish to express our thanks to the management teams and to all the employees of our group companies for their outstanding work. I also want to thank the thousands of financial advisors who work with us to serve the interests of their clients. We thank our clients for the trust they have put in us. Finally, thanks to you, our shareholders, for your continued confidence and support. Thank you to all of you. Would you like me to take care of your speech? Sure, you're okay. No. I'm taking a big risk. I'm not in a binder. I'm worried. So we're doing the same thing, Jeff. Alors, merci, Jeff. Nous avons votre message. Thank you, Jeff. We appreciate your message of confidence and optimism as our group of companies continues to deliver strong results in challenging times. My remarks this morning will focus on productivity, both in the Canadian economy and in our group companies. Many of the challenges we face today are global, but Canada has had its own problem for the past few decades, and I'm talking about declining productivity. Quite simply, Canada is falling badly behind other developed countries in terms of economic growth and standard of living. We must collectively wake up to the need to do something about this. Productivity is one measure of our GDP per capita, and it tells us how well we are competing relative to others. For people's incomes and living standards are indeed determined by how efficiently we produce goods and services. In 1981, Canada's standard of living was impressive. Our GDP per capita exceeded the average of the OECD countries by 3% and trailed that of the United States by 8%. By 2022, however, our GDP per capita lagged the OECD's average by 9% and lagged the U.S. GDP per capita by a staggering 27%. Between 2015 and 2019, our real GDP per capita growth was a mere 0.5% per annum. Since 2019, our growth rate has been the fifth weakest of the 38 OECD countries. Worse still, the OECD recently forecast that Canada will likely come in dead last over the next four decades in GDP growth per capita. This is alarming. Some have called it an economic emergency. Ordinary Canadians are feeling the pain of this lack of growth most acutely. We are losing the Canadian standard of living we have cherished. The quality of life for many is being eroded. As a Canadian citizen, a shareholder, and chairman of a large Canadian business, it troubles me deeply. Our weak productivity harms our ability to support an aging population. As the ratio of retirees to the workforce increases, it is simple math. The productivity will have to go up just to maintain the level of support that we currently provide. Better productivity is required if we are to keep paying for our social safety net, including, of course, healthcare, childcare, post-secondary education, and the support, of course, for the most vulnerable. Weak productivity undermines our capacity to invest, of course, in transportation, strategic infrastructure, and the transfer to renewable energy, as Mr. Orr was talking about. As a country, we're really in this together. Addressing Canada's productivity problem is a collective issue that we need to grapple with together: companies, policymakers, and civil society. In this context, I've been motivated to reflect on our group company's productivity. When I started at Power Corporation—it's hard to believe this—in 1981, our market capitalization was CAD 1.9 billion. Today, it stands at CAD 24.7 billion, actually after Mr. Orr's report and Jake Lawrence's talk with all the analysts. We're probably quite a bit above that. But in any case, it's a 13-fold increase over that period. So that's quite a bit. Through most of our history, we have been able to outperform the S&P ````/T SX and the S&P /TSX Financial, including, as we saw in Jeff's slides, over the last five years by considerable margin. La compétition par rapport à nos pairs. Being competitive with our peers and even outperforming requires that we deploy our assets optimally. What this means is that we must be highly productive and stay committed to enhancing our productivity yet further. Our growth in productivity, though, did not come at the price of reducing the number of employees. Many people think so. It is not the case. On the contrary, our strength in productivity has been a matter of working smarter, bringing the right technology to bear, eliminating inefficient processes, deploying capital for greatest impact, innovation in products and services, and investing in our people, their training, and their leadership skills. Rather than shrinking our workforce, we have, in fact, increased it by well over 50% over the past 20 years. We attribute our consistent progress in strengthening productivity within our companies to a couple of key principles and practices. Among the most fundamental of these are taking a long-term strategic approach, as Mr. Orr already mentioned, keeping a continual focus on core strengths, and seeking out and retaining the best talent we can find, both in running the companies, of the group, and on our boards of directors. To that, I would add that we have certainly learned the lesson about the importance of investing constantly in up-to-date digital technologies, and this is no easy task. When occasionally some of our businesses have underperformed, an underinvestment in technology was often what lay behind that problem. We have also maintained a network and ecosystem of global relationships that have helped us find new opportunities and bring fresh insights. Building an economy focused on productivity, I believe, is in many ways like building a company, and I think some of the concepts can apply. Allow me to propose eight ideas that, I think are appropriate. Adopt and action a long-term nonpartisan plan to drive productivity in our economy. Let's identify the key factors that are slowing us down, such as inadequate investment in technology, equipment, skills, and training, incentivize these, and sustain our investment in them over the longer term. Refresh our immigration policy. Canada's currently facing a severe labor shortage. Furthermore, as our population ages, we will need to replace workers who are easing out of the labor force. So we need to stay committed to immigration, but we need to plan carefully so that immigrants can integrate effectively and therefore contribute to our future growth. Building on our core strengths, Canada brings exceptional strength in key areas like financial services, technology, natural resources, manufacturing, agrifood, and higher education and research. Canada needs to build on what we're good at and adopt policies that are more supportive of risk-taking and investment in these areas. Fourthly, we need to facilitate scaling up of Canadian businesses of all sizes. This is probably our biggest problem. Canada needs more companies across the spectrum of the economy with a pathway to scaling up. Too many Canadian companies are sold too early. This is most unfortunate. We need more innovative startups and medium-sized businesses that are able to grow and prosper in Canada. We also need more large companies that can take advantage of the productivity opportunities that scale offers, ones that are capable of keep competing vis-à-vis players in the U.S. and the global economy. We need to adopt regulatory frameworks that are straightforward, have less red tape, as well as policies that help companies to scale, such as access to talent, capital, and competing risk-reward equations. Fifth, we need to simplify trade within Canada. Interprovincial trade barriers remain a major drag on our productivity. In fact, in 2019, the IMF concluded that eliminating interprovincial productivity barriers alone would produce, imagine this, a 3.8% increase in Canadian GDP. Protect and build on our great Canadian brand. Canada still has many strengths. We enjoy a peaceful, welcoming, and tolerant society. We have the ninth-largest economy in the world, a well-educated population, high-quality products and services, leading-edge technologies, and manufacturing capacity, and, of course, a unique natural resource base. Protecting, promoting, and building on our brand will help us access new markets for our products, but just as important, it'll also help us attract new investments that are critical to our growth. We must encourage technology adoption. Adopting new technologies widely, including AI, is critical to our productivity and international competitiveness. Canada needs to support sectors that are lagging in technology adoption. And lastly, demonstrate and highlight our commitment to strong governance, sound leadership, and integrity. Well-run organizations demonstrate a commitment to the well-being of their employees, their clients and customers, and their stakeholders more broadly, including shareholders. Values such as trust, respect, integrity, and commitment to seeking a constructive consensus are underappreciated in the conversations about how to fix Canada's productivity problem. They should not be so. These are a few ideas based on my 40+ years in business that I respectfully put forward for consideration in discussion about productivity challenges. I don't pretend that they are definitive or exhaustive, of course, but whether my thoughts are right or wrong for that matter, or not perfect, let's call them, my main message is that we simply must get productivity into the mainstream discussion in this country. Evidence that we have a problem is here. That's, I can tell you, is indisputable. Je pense qu'il est de la responsabilité. I believe it is the responsibility of corporate leaders in Canada to recognize the urgency and to vigorously join the conversation alongside public policy decision-makers and civil society. Companies that strengthen their productivity create more jobs, stimulate economic activity, and provide the tax revenues we need to support a high quality of life for Canadians, all Canadians. Then what we need to focus on next is celebrating those who are willing to take risks and to help drive our economic growth. I say this because capital is mobile, and investors will deploy it in jurisdictions where they feel welcome and where they can make an acceptable return. Let me once again, in conclusion, thank all our shareholders for your continued trust in us, in our team, in our strategy, and in the principles that guide us. Thank you. You're back up. No, I have to get back up here and kick. Bon, il faut que je. Have a glass of water. Bon, alors, la. The next item on the agenda is the election of directors. We're very proud of them all. This year, Mr. Christian Noyer is not standing for re-election. On behalf of the board and the company's shareholders, I would like to thank Mr. Noyer for his invaluable contribution over the past eight years. I also welcome Ms. Ségolène Gallienne, who unfortunately could not join us today in person as she is detained in Europe. She is a candidate for election to the board of directors this year. Ms. Gallienne is a director of several European companies. I'm convinced that her vast experience and expertise will enrich our board's discussions. I'm also delighted to say that 36% of today's nominees to the board of directors are women, enabling us to reach and, in fact, even exceed our 30% target we had set ourselves. I would ask Mr. Gregory Belton to propose the nominees. Mr. Chair, I nominate the following 14 persons for election as directors of the Corporation. Mr. Pierre Beaudoin, Marcel Coutu, André Desmarais, Paul Desmarais, Jr., Gary Doer, Ms. Ségolène Gallienne, Mr. Anthony Graham, Mrs. Sharon MacLeod, Paula Madoff, Isabelle Marcoux, Mr. Jeffrey Orr, Timothy Ryan, Siim Vanaselja, and Ms. Elizabeth Wilson. Thank you, Mr. Belton. Are there any further nominations or questions from shareholders specifically on this item? I now declare the nomination closed and would ask Mr. Belton to present his motion. Mr. Chair, I move that those nominated be elected directors of the corporation to hold office until the next annual meeting of shareholders or until their successors are elected, subject to the provisions of the corporation's bylaws. Thank you, Mr. Belton. Je passe maintenant au vote par scrutin. Let's move on to the voting. The blue ballots have already been distributed, and only registered shareholders or their proxy holders can vote by ballot if you have not yet voted and have not received a ballot at the registration desk. Or indeed, if you wish to change your vote, please raise your hand, and a scrutineer will give you a blue ballot. Anybody needing a ballot? Yes, this lady over here. So we have one person asking for a ballot. All good? Thank you. Yes. You might, might as well take the others as well because we're voting on several things later on. Anyone else needing a ballot? If you don't have the ballots for the other votes, you might as well ask for them now as well. All good? So the next item on the agenda is the appointment of auditors. I would invite Mr. Claude Morency, please present this motion. Mr. Chair, I move that Deloitte be appointed auditors of the corporation to hold office until the close of the next annual meeting of shareholders. Thank you, Mr. Morency. Are there any questions from shareholders specifically on this item? We will now move on to the vote by ballot. Salmon-pink ballots have already been distributed. Only registered shareholders or their proxy holders can vote by ballot. If you have not already voted and have not been given a ballot at the registration desk or wish to change your vote, please raise your hand, and a scrutineer will provide you with the appropriate ballot. I think the two people who needed the ballots have actually received them. Is anyone else in need of a ballot for this particular vote? Nothing? On one side and English on the other. Tous les bulletins ont été remis. The next item of business is the approval of the non-binding advisory resolution on the corporation's approach to executive compensation. Would Ms. Isabelle Saint-Pierre, an employee and a shareholder of the corporation, please present her motion? Mr. Chair, I move that the non-binding advisory resolution on the corporation's approach to executive compensation, as articulated in the management proxy circular, be approved. Thank you, Ms. Saint-Pierre. Are there questions from shareholders specifically on this item? We'll now move on to voting. Green ballots have already been distributed. Only registered shareholders and proxy holders can vote on this ballot as well. If you've not already received it, this ballot, that which is green, please, or you want to change your vote, please, raise your hand. I think you got a green one as well. Everybody's set. Perfect. Great. Gotta wait for a second here. Passons maintenant au proposi. We are now moving on to shareholder proposals. The company received five proposals. For the same one day. Well done. La société. So the company has received five shareholder proposals to be submitted at this meeting. Each of these is set out in the management proxy circular. The board of directors' recommendations are also set out in the circular. As mentioned earlier, we understand that MEDAC does not intend to ask for a vote on its proposal to hold virtual meetings in person since we are, in future, gonna be holding them in, person. There are therefore four proposals to be put to a shareholder vote at this meeting. Following the presentation of the proposals, registered shareholders or their proxy holders will be given the opportunity to vote by ballot on the four proposals put to the vote. Before continuing, I would ask the representatives of, Investors for Paris Compliance and MEDAC to keep their comments brief and, confined, of course, to the proposal in question. I now invite Mr. Renaud Gignac. I see that he's already at the microphone representing Investors for Paris Compliance. I have a hard time with this title in English. I mean, I wanna say it in French because of Paris, but anyway, it's Investors for Paris Compliance. I invite you, Mr. Gignac, to present your proposal. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, members of the board, executives, shareholders of Power Corporation. My name is Renaud Gignac, Investors for Paris Compliance, which is a shareholder activism organization that works with financial institutions and investors to ensure compliance with the Paris Accord and to protect the interests of shareholders with respect to transition risks that are faced by publicly listed Canadian corporations. More than 140 countries adopted a carbon-neutral target, which is 90% of the world economy, including the U.S., China, and the European Union. Energy transition, currently underway globally, gives rise to completely new opportunities. That being so, the exposure of financial institutions to high-intensity carbon assets such as the coal, oil, and gas sectors is a significant financial risk for shareholders, and this affects the banks, the insurance companies, as well as holding companies. This is why we have put forward a proposed resolution asking Power to disclose annually all its Scope 1 to 3 financial assets according to the accepted standards, and in absolute terms. Through its subsidiaries, Power is the third-largest investor in fossil fuels in Canada, with investments amounting to $15 billion in the oil, gas, and coal sectors on behalf of its various clients. According to the forecasts of the International Energy Agency, world demand for oil and gas is going to level off by 2030, and the peak demand for coal is coming just around the corner. So investments made by Power for its clients in these sectors are facing a better and better documented transition risk, and these investments are at risk, but it's the value of the parent company that is threatened, which is a great concern to shareholders in 2024. Shareholders now need to understand the real transition risk that Power is exposed to. We understand the efforts made by various subsidiaries with respect to climate change. You've mentioned this. Power Sustainable, which manages about CAD 2 billion worth of assets, as well as Lifeco, which has adopted a new 37% funded emissions drop, and Mackenzie, which has adopted a carbon zero target for its assets under management. Currently, Power Corporation, as the parent company, has no commitment to carbon zero and has no overall plan to reduce its exposure to this sector, any sector at risk from the transition. And its holding company status is currently used as an excuse for not taking a position on this, and management simply turns to the subsidiaries to do this, whereas it could actually use its status as a lever for action. This is a matter of choice. Guidelines in the parent company mean that basically, Power is not really acting according to its principles. All kinds of money invested in renewable energy through Power Sustainable, but 7.5 times more capital is invested in fossil fuels throughout the subsidiaries of the group. And in fact, the emissions generated by the various Power portfolio members more than offset Power Sustainable efforts. And yet, change is just around the corner. Without becoming involved in the day-to-day management of its subsidiaries, Power has the ability to disclose to its shareholders all the funded investments in these sectors. We're talking about mostly a change in attitude, which in any case is fully in line with the direction adopted by the market as a whole. Other companies, holding companies like NatWest, have already done so, which shows that methodological quantification difficulties can be overcome. Investors for Paris Compliance adopts an approach of constructive dialogue with the companies with which it interacts. So we hope that in 2024, 2025, we will be able to set the stage for a productive exchange with Power's management so as to position this company as a leader in the market versus its peers with respect to these climate issues. Thank you very much, Mr. Gignac, for that very clear and succinct presentation. Very well worded. So there's a statement in the circular about this proposal, and I would, of course, also like to refer the shareholders to the remarks made earlier by Mr. Orr, in the course of which he also discussed the environmental progress achieved by the corporation, as you've pointed out yourself, as well as the relevant discussion. Before I invite Mr. Willie Gagnon, MEDAC's representative, to take the floor on behalf of the board, I would like to express my sincere condolences to the family of Mr. Yves Michaud and to Mr. Gagnon and to the wider MEDAC family. Now that we have lost the founder of MEDAC, who was a regular participant at our AGMs, and I can tell you that he used to present very well-turned presentations in his beautiful, beautiful, and very fancy French. So over to you, Mr. Gagnon. Mr. Chairman, thank you. Willie Gagnon, on behalf of Mouvement d'Éducation des Actionnaires, as founded by Mr. Michaud, he often said that there is no sense in simply hoping that something will happen. We actually have to act. I hope that I am going to be present for a long time to pick up his torch. You know, on the day of his funeral, it was the most touching event. Just at the very moment when his coffin was being carried away, we had just won a vote at a shareholders' meeting, the CIBC, on the holding of in-person AGMs. That was an interesting coincidence. We're happy that this is an in-person AGM. You're one of the first companies that isn't forced to do this, but that is doing so. The banks have almost all continued committed to doing so, but you've actually done this today. I understand that this is going to be recorded in the minutes from what you've said, and I understand from our discussions with the company that this is also going to be included in the voting results filed on SEDAR+. We're very happy to be here in person, to see people we can identify, people sitting to our left and right with whom we can chat. This is never possible in virtual meetings. We also hope that you will hold a virtual part of your in-person meetings. We're not against the virtual. What we were against was the lack of an in-person component, so we're really, really happy with these developments. So when that was proposal number three, so we don't need to vote on that, but we have three other proposals: incentive compensation for all employees on the basis of ESG objectives. We want to see how many employees in the holding company. I'm using the very famous French word holding, so throughout the holding company, we want to know how many employees were affected by or received incentive compensation with respect to ESG objectives. Now, you say that, it's not the first time that I've brought this up, and in fact, it happened a while ago, but you say that because you're a holding company and because the company has about so many employees, basically, this doesn't mean very much. We would have liked to know exactly how many employees are affected by incentive compensation for ESG objectives in the past, currently, and in future, the percentage of that incentive compensation devoted to ESG issues for environmental questions. It would be interesting to disclose this. We agreed not to vote on this proposal wherever companies have agreed to disclose this information, so it would have been very easy for you also to do this overall for all the group companies. We understand your argument, but we respectfully disagree with it. Proposal number three, we already talked about. This brings me to number four. Sorry. I have to choose between looking at you and looking at my papers. So proposal number four, disclosure of language fluency of executives. You agreed last year to disclose this, but you're refusing to disclose fluency among executives this year. Almost all companies, with the exception of one, about 20 of them have accepted this. It's very easy to disclose this. It doesn't cost you any money. I really don't understand why you've turned this down. I mean, we see what you've said, but we don't understand your position. So we're inviting all shareholders to vote in favor of this proposal. And obviously, we're gonna be defeated because there are multiple voting-right shares, and you've appealed to everybody to vote against, but nevertheless, we're going to drill down into the actual voting results to see what proportion of single-vote shareholders have supported our proposal. And then proposal number five, advisory vote on environmental policies. In your reply, you say the company believes that the responsibility for strategy objectives in environment and climate have to lie in the hands of management under the supervision of the board. We are not challenging this in any way. What we're asking for is an advisory vote on environmental policies. I mean, we're not trying to encroach on the prerogatives of the board and the executive, and we simply don't understand why you are spelling this out. An advisory vote does not take the place of the responsibilities of the board. In fact, you have allowed for an advisory vote on the compensation policy, so I don't see why you would not be able to adopt an advisory vote on environmental policies. This is a highly important topic. It's going to become more and more important as years go by. Several companies have already implemented this practice, which is an exemplary practice, and we hope that, just as happened with respect to the advisory vote on compensation, you will move forward with this one. You'll remember that in the past, you were in disagreement with that other advisory vote, but you finally decided to go along with it, and we hope that you will follow suit with the one I'm presenting now, even if we fail today. So we urge all the shareholders to vote in favor of all our proposals, and we thank you very much for all the time you have granted us at the microphone. Thank you so much as well, Mr. Gagnon, for having been so clear and so succinct. However, the board's recommendation, in spite of your eloquence, is to vote against the four proposals governed by shareholders' vote and submitted by the two shareholder groups for the reasons expressed in the circular, and I don't need to add to any of these. Are there now any questions from shareholders with regard to any of these proposals? We are now going to call the vote on these four proposals. The four proposals are now on one single ballot, yellow in color, which you have been given. The proposal that has been withdrawn by MEDAC is still printed on the ballot for obvious reasons, but you do not need to vote on it since it has been withdrawn. Any votes that will be expressed on that particular proposal will not be tabulated or recorded. Only shareholders of record and their proxy holders are entitled to vote by ballot. If you haven't yet voted, if you haven't received a ballot, please raise your hands, and you will be given a yellow ballot. And if you've already asked for all the others that were missing, you probably have the yellow one anyway. So, have all the ballots been handed in? I don't see any raised hands, so I hereby declare the voting closed for all items on the agenda, and I ask the scrutineers to present their reports. It is a preliminary report because there may be slight differences between the results communicated this morning and those that will be disclosed after the meeting. Report on the results of the ballots. Thank you. That lady right here. Oh, there's two others there. Mr. Chairman, ask scrutineers to reconfirm the following: all 14 persons who have been proposed for elections as directors of the corporations have been elected with a majority of votes in favor. The motion to appoint Deloitte LLP as auditors is carried. The motion for executive compensation is carried. The motion on shareholder proposals numbers one,two,three,four and five have been defeated. Thank you. Thank you. And merci, Madame la scrutinatrice, pour votre rapport. Thank you, Madame scrutineer, for your report. I declare the resolution on elections to the board adopted, and the 14 individuals who were nominated have been elected. Congratulations to all. I declare that the resolution on the appointment of auditors has been approved, as for the non-binding proposal from us. It's also been approved. The other four from shareholders have been rejected, and the result of the vote is going to be filed on SEDAR+ after the end of the meeting, and a report on the election result for each director is also going to be posted in a press release after the meeting. The formal part of the meeting now being concluded. We will be very happy to take any questions you may have. Business that may properly come to this meeting. This ends the formal portion of the meeting.