Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Murray Edwards, and as chairman of Canadian Natural Resources, I have the responsibility to chair this annual general meeting. As you know that because of the impact of the COVID virus, we've decided to hold this meeting as many other companies by way of a virtual meeting through webcast online, and we appreciate all the shareholders who are attending. We do apologize as our annual meeting is always a good opportunity to get together with a number of our shareholders on an annual basis and a number of former and current employees and to tell the story of the company. So we'll have to look to next year when we have an opportunity to do that once again.
I wish to thank you to those who are attending the meeting. And the purpose of the meeting is the Ruth Chain Annual Business of the Corporation being the receipt of the Annual Report of Canadian Natural Resources, the consolidated financial statements of the corporation, and the report of the auditors thereon for the year ending December 3139, the election of Directors of Canadian Natural and the appointment of auditors. The shareholders will also be asked to consider on an advisory basis a resolution on the corporation's approach to executive compensation. Participation in the Annual Meeting is a right reserved solely for registered shareholders of Canadian Natural or their designated proxy holder. A number of people who are not shareholders of Canadian Natural have also joined this meeting, and we welcome them as guests to observe the proceeding.
Any registered shareholders or their designated proxy holder who have questions on matters should raise them at the appropriate time during the meeting. As this meeting is being held virtually by live webcast, we think it's necessary to set forth a few rules for the orderly conduct of the meeting. Questions in respect of a motion can be submitted by any registered shareholder or duly appointed proxy holder using the instant messaging servicing of the Lumi virtual interface. Please note that there will be a slight delay in the publication of any communications or questions received. Two, when asking a question, please indicate your name, which entity you represent, if any, and confirm that you are a registered shareholder or a duly appointed proxy holder.
Three, for the purposes of the meeting today, voting on all matters will be conducted by electronic ballot. Registered shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders will be asked to vote on each business item. Fourth and finally final, when you are able to vote, you will receive a message on the Lumite virtual interface requesting you to register your votes. You only have a certain amount of time to do so once the polls are open. With that, we will now proceed with today's meetings.
To expediate the part of the meeting, I mean, I will move and second all motions. As the calling of the anti mean time has now arrived, I shall ask mister Paul Mendes, vice president, legal, general counsel, and corporate secretary to the corporation to act as secretary of the meeting and Computershare Trust Company of Canada to its representatives back to Scribner to to compute the votes taken at the meeting and report thereon. Hello? Is anybody there? Paul?
Yes. In addition, Computershare Trust Company of Canada, through its representatives, will act as scrutineers to compute the votes taken at the meeting and report thereon. The notice calling the meeting are shown together with the former proxy, managing information circular, and audit consolidated exemption to the corporation were mailed to the shareholders, the directors, and the auditors of the corporation. A declaration of such meeting has been provided by Computershare as the corporation transverses. The secretary will annex the declaration of the mailing to the minutes of this meeting.
The quorum for this meeting, as set out in the bylaws of the corporation, is shareholders present in person or by proxy representing no less than 5% of the common shares of the corporation, being 59,042,693 shares. We are advised that there is quorum present at the meeting as there are approximately 911,895,000 shares present or approximately 78% of the issued and outstanding shares of the corporation. And therefore, we are authorized to proceed with the formal business of the meeting. As such, I now declare this annual meeting shall be be regularly convened and properly constituted for the transaction of business. As we mentioned, voting today will be conducted by electronic ballot.
The polls are now open. At this point, all registered holders and duly appointed proxies who have personally logged in with their control numbers or username and wish to vote will be able to do so on the screen. All motions being brought and all motions being brought forth in the meeting. The last annual meeting of the corporation was held on 05/09/2019. And as there are no matters arising from the last annual and special meeting of shareholders and there have been no intervening meetings, I suggest we take the minutes of that meeting from last year read and approved.
The next formal item of business is to receive the report of management, the consolidated financial statements from the corporation for the year ended December 3139, and the report of Rogers Pricewaterhouse thereon. All of these have been made available to shareholders and unless there's an objection, we will dispense with the reading of the management reports, the consolidated statements and the audit report. In addition, Mr. John Williamson, who is the partner of Pricewaterhouse Charter Accounting firm, our auditors, is on the line and has agreed to respond to any questions in regards to the audit. To ask if there's any question in regards to the audit, please submit your question using the Lumine instant message function.
As I see there are no questions submitted, we will now proceed with the next item of formal business. It is now in order to proceed with election of directors pursuant to the articles of the corporation. Under the articles, the corporation must have a minimum of three directors and a maximum of 15 directors. It is proposed that a total of elect 11 directors be elected at this meeting. 11 director nominees of the corporation have agreed to stand for election.
They are Catherine m Best, m Elizabeth Cannon, Christopher Fong, Gordon Giffin, Welf Govert, Steven Lott, McKay, Frank McKenna, David Tour, Annette Brasher, and Murray Edwards. I now ask that there's any further nominations to be submitted on the LewMy portal. I see there are no formal no further nominations. I now declare nomination closed. I'm advised that based upon the calculations of proxy received, each of director nominees will be elected as a director by a majority of the votes cast at the election and meeting in favor of their election.
As such, I now declare the following duly elected directors of the corporation to serve until the next Annual Meeting of Shareholders or until the respective successors have been elected or appointed. Those nominated are as follows: Catherine Best, Elizabeth Cannon, Christopher Fong, Gordon Giffrin, Will Gilbert, Steve Watt, Tim McKay, Frank McKenna, David Tour, Annette Brasher, and Murray Edwards. Just quickly before I move to the the next item of business, I just would quickly like just to make a quick note of a couple things. First, I would like to thank the board of directors for their advice, support, counsel, and probing questions that they provide us on a regular basis. I mean, we're very fortunate to have answer.
A director of normality to introduce them in person, talk a bit about their background. Given the nature of this meeting, will not do that today. But I can assure you we have a board with a breadth of experience in different areas, whether it be banking, financial, law, accounting, and we're well served by them. In addition, one of our directors, Tim Faithful, has been a director of the company I think for approaching fifteen years, reached a mandatory retirement age this year, 75. And so Tim Faithful attended his last meeting as a director yesterday and is stepping down to concur with his annual meeting.
Mr. Faithful was formerly the president of Shell Canada and was based in The UK. And so Tim was a great counsel and advice to us over the years providing with an international perspective. And when in 2017 we acquired from Michelle their Canadian oil sands assets, Tim was very supportive and encouraged that transaction. And she had a good sense of the assets and the people that came with that transaction.
So I would like to thank Tim on behalf of the board, the company, the employees and shareholders for his service. Thank you, Tim. The other point I'd like to mention is Steve Watt. Steve has been an employee of Canadian Natural for almost thirty years. Steve was one of our first employees.
I think he was an employee 15 or 20. And as you know, served for president for over a decade of the company. Four years ago, Steve came and said he wanted to step back and retire. We convinced Steve that he really didn't want to retire. He just wanted to take a different role.
And Steve became Vice Chairman for the last four years which was very helpful in the transition to Tim McKay as President. And this year Steve did say he wanted to formally retire. And so we talked to the board and we thought that Steve, given his breadth of knowledge and experience, if he was willing to continue to serve in a directorship role, the board would be very supportive. So Steve retired last week, retired earlier this week, formally as an officer, and now just continues as a director. And we're lucky to have Steve's experience and knowledge on a go forward basis.
So Steve, thank you for your service over the years. You've been a great partner to work with, a great friend. And the shareholders of the corporation have been well served by your leadership over the years. And also thank you, Steve, for continuing to serve in a directorship role. It will be valuable for our shareholders.
And then of course, again, I'd like to thank all the directors for their service and support over the last year. The next item of business is the appointment of auditors of the corporation and to authorize the Audit Committee of the Board to fix the remuneration. We are advised that based on the calculation of the proxy received, resolution regarding the appointment of auditors of the corporation and the authority of the Audit Committee to fix remuneration will be approved. As such, we will now proceed with the advisory vote on the corporation's approach to executive compensation. Although this is an advisory vote only and not binding by corporation, the results of the vote will be considered by the compensation committee of the board, objecting in determining its approach to executive compensation in the future.
I would now request that if you have any questions regarding this matter of the advisory vote, please use the Luminate instant message function to submit those questions. I'm looking at oh, no questions submitted. So with that, I will now as this resolution is required to be passed by a simple majority of votes cast in the meeting, we are advised that based on the calculation of the proxy received, this resolution regarding the approach to executive compensation will will be approved. In addition, at this point, I want to advise any registered shareholders for duly appointed products that have electronic ballots. The ballots gonna close momentarily.
So if you're going to submit them, please do immediately. In terms of the advisory resolution executive compensation, we are informed informed by Computershare that the vote in favor of the resolution is 95% of the shareholders in favor of the advisory resolution in favor of the approach to executive compensation. We would ask then that the scrutineer compile the report regarding the results of voting on all the business matters at this meeting, and then I advise that the actual results will be published on SEDAR and by press release in due course of any shareholders wishing to receive the actual numbers. Before I move to closing the formal part of the meeting, I would just like to also take this opportunity to provide thanks on behalf of the shareholders, the board, and myself personally for the commitment of all of our management and employees of Canadian Natural. We don't get to the opportunities that we capture and the successes that we achieve without a lot of hard work and leadership by our management team and a lot of hard work and commitment by our employees.
And no more as it's been evident in the last couple months as we've all been working under the impact of the COVID, virus. During that period of time, we have seen, in excess of 6,000 employees working remotely from our offices, of our office employees working remotely, and over 4,000 of our field employees working under safety protocols so as to minimize the impact of the virus, while at the same time ensuring that the operation continues to run effectively and efficiently. To date, we have been very fortunate in that we've been able to achieve that safe protocol and keep our operations running smoothly. And I would like to thank those employees and management. Without them, I don't think we've been able to achieve such results.
So thank you very much. With that, as there's no further business we brought before the meeting, that concludes formal part of the meeting terminated. As such, I now declare the meeting to be terminated. And I look forward to seeing each of you hopefully at our next Annual Meeting in person in May 2021. So thank you very much and have a good evening everybody.
Thank you. Goodbye.