Gerald Butts, President and CEO of WWF-Canada; Peter Coughlin, co-founder of Montreal-based real estate and investment company Redbourne Properties Inc.; and Samuel Minzberg, a director of Reitmans (Canada) Limited, Quebecor Media Inc., and Richmont Mines Inc, will replace three former external members-at-large on the McGill Board of Governors. They join nine other members-at-large on the 25-person board. Their terms began January 1, 2011, and will expire December 31, 2015, after which they will be eligible for re-election for one more five-year term.
“They are replacing three people whose terms were completed at the end of last year,” said Chris Chipello, a McGill Media Relations spokesperson.
When asked how the new members were selected, Chipello answered that they were elected through “the standard process.”
“To a degree their backgrounds speak for themselves,” said Chipello.
The Nominating and Governance Committee was responsible for nominating Butts, Coughlin, and Minzberg, whom the BoG selected from a broader field of nominations.
In a press release, Stuart Cobbett, Chair of the McGill BoG, said, “Our three new members bring with them a range of expertise that will be of considerable value to the Board in overseeing the affairs of the University.”
Butts, President and CEO of the international environmental charity WWF-Canada, will sit on the board’s Nominating and Governance Committee, whose mandate is to be “responsible for making recommendations to the Board with respect to nominations of members-at-large, appointments to Board committees, Board appointments to non-Board committees and the evaluation of the governance activities and functions of the Board.”
Minzberg will sit on the Human Resources Committee, whose mandate is to “monitor, evaluate, and make decisions on behalf of the Board with respect to policies and strategic matters related to the University’s human resources and personnel issues.”
The University is scheduled to go into collective agreement negotiations with five campus unions this calendar year, and has already begun negotiations with the McGill University Non-Academic Certified Association (MUNACA).
Quebecor Media Inc., the media conglomerate for whom Minzberg is a director, has been trapped in bitter contract negotiations with angry Journal de Montréal workers since January 2009. Quebecor has been involved in 13 lockouts in little over ten years.