Hello and welcome to the annual meeting of shareholders of Equinox Gold Corp. Please note that today's meeting is being recorded. If you participate in today's meeting and disclose personal information, you will be deemed to consent to the recording transfer and use of name. If you disclose personal information of another person in today's meeting, you will be deemed to represent and warrant to Computershare and the company that you first obtained all required consents for the disclosure, recording, transfer, and use of such personal information from all appropriate person before your disclosure. After the meeting, we'll have a presentation and a question-and-answer session. If you are attending the meeting online, you can submit questions or comments at any time by clicking on the Q&A icon. It is now my pleasure to turn today's meeting over to Mr. Ross Beaty, Chair of the Board of Equinox Gold. Mr.
Beaty, the floor is yours.
Thank you, Operator, and welcome everybody to the annual meeting of the shareholders of Equinox Gold. Thank you all for joining. We have a pile of people here in Vancouver in the room and a bunch of people online, so thank you all for coming. After the formal portion of today's meeting, I'm going to do kind of an update on Equinox as I see it, an annual thing I've been doing now for six years. It's going to be kind of a snapshot of what we promised a year ago, what we've done in the year, and then an outlook for the next 12 months, which I hope I'll be able to come back and see we've delivered perfectly the way we have delivered in the last year.
If you're joining us online after the formal portion of today's meeting, Rhylin Bailie here, our Vice President of Investor Relations, will provide instructions on how you can log in to the corporate update webcast. So since this is a hybrid meeting with some shareholders here in person and others joining us online, the following process will apply to conduct the meeting. Questions about a motion can be submitted online by any registered shareholder or proxy holder using the Q&A icon on your screen. If you're not sure how to navigate the online system, please refer to the AGM guide that was mailed to you and that is also available for download in the shareholder event section of Equinox Gold's website.
For those registered shareholders or proxy holders attending the meeting in person, when asking a question, please indicate your name, which entity you represent, if any, and if you are a registered shareholder or proxy holder. Those questions that are procedural or directly related to motions before the meeting, they will be addressed in the corporate update after the formal business of the meeting. We will also address any non-procedural meeting-related questions that were submitted through the website at that time. Rhylin Bailie will act as a question moderator for the meeting. I will now outline the voting procedures. For those attending the meeting today online, voting on all matters will be conducted by electronic ballot using the virtual interface.
To give registered holders and proxy holders sufficient time to vote, we've opened the ballots and we'll keep them open while I present each item of business to be conducted at the meeting. For those attending in person, voting will be conducted by ballot. Registered shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders will be asked to vote on each business item. If you have already voted by proxy, do not vote again here at the meeting unless you intend to change your initial vote. First thing I want to do is I want to introduce our stellar board of directors who have helped navigate this company over the last year and, of course, since we began and over the foreseeable future. I'm very pleased if you wouldn't just mind putting up your hand.
I'd like to introduce Maryse Bélanger, Gordon Campbell, Sally Eyre, Marshall Koval, and, of course, Greg Smith, who is our fabulous President and CEO. Greg?
Yeah, right here.
There you are. We have four members who couldn't sorry, three other board members who couldn't join today: Fizul Siddiqui , Len Boggio, and Trudy Curran. Fizul is in Japan. Len is suffering in Paris right now, and Trudy is in Alberta. She's a brand new board member. She's going to be elected today, and we'll say she was at her first board meeting yesterday, and she's going to be great. These board members are really. I'm just so privileged to work with them all. They're engaged. They're smart. They're involved. It's just been a really great journey with them all as we build this company into a bigger, stronger, better company. Other executives and management in attendance, and I'll say the same great things about our management team. It's fantastic. I'll be saying again this kind of shout-out and appreciation to them during the online presentation.
But today, of course, our General Counsel, Susan Toews. Peter Hardie, our CFO, who is, again, with our financial team, unrivaled. Doug Reddy, COO, often on the road visiting mines. Scott Heffernan, our chief exploration manager, senior vice president—pardon me—executive vice president of exploration. Sebastien D'Amico , senior vice president of finance and treasury, Sebastien. Gordana Slepcev, more or less. SVP project development and has been a real stellar member of our Greenstone team oversight team. Kelly Boychuk, senior vice president of technical services, Kelly over there. And, of course, Rhylin Bailie, our VP investor relations. So we'll now proceed with the formal portion of today's meeting, which should take about 10 minutes. And to expedite matters, I'll move and second all motions. Meeting will now come to order. I'll act as chair. I appoint Susan as secretary of the meeting.
For the purposes of this meeting, I appoint Computershare Investor Services Inc. as scrutineer to compute the votes of any polls taken at this meeting and to report the results to me. Okay. The objectives of today's meeting are set out in the company's information circular dated March 25th, 2024. I confirm that the notice for this meeting, the information circular, and the formal proxy were mailed to shareholders on April 1st, 2024. The company has received an affidavit confirming proof of mailing from our transfer agent, Computershare Investor Services Inc. A copy of the affidavit will be attached to the schedule for the minutes of this meeting. Unless there's any objection, I will dispense with the reading of the notice of this meeting.
Copies of the information circular and other meeting materials are available on our website and under the company's profile on SEDAR+ and on EDGAR. That means I indicate. The scrutineer has advised that proxies were received from the holders of a sufficient number of common shares to constitute a quorum. I therefore declare the meeting to be regularly called and properly constituted for the transaction of business. Formal report of the scrutineer will be attached to the schedule for the minutes of this meeting. As most of you are aware, at annual meetings, most shares are represented by proxies given to management. The scrutineer has advised that a significant majority of the proxies received by management have been voted in favor of each of the director nominees and in favor of each of the other items of business. No controversy today. We thank you for your confidence.
All registered shareholders and proxy holders who have joined online and properly logged in with their control number or invite code and wish to vote will be able to see on their screens all items of business to be voted on at this meeting. Please remember that if you have previously recorded your vote by proxy, you should not vote again unless you wish to revoke and change your initial vote. As a reminder to those online, the polls are currently open for all items of business to be voted on at today's meeting. This means you can vote on each item immediately, or you can wait until the conclusion of discussion on each item before casting your vote. Isn't this exciting? The items of business to be voted on and your available voting options will be visible on the voting panel of your screen.
Please register your votes by selecting the for, withhold, or against buttons next to the name of each proposed director and next to each of the other resolutions. Once discussion is concluded, on all items of business, we'll provide a few additional moments for you to enter your votes. For those of you attending in person, voting for each item will be conducted by ballot. If you're a registered shareholder or proxy holder, you should have received a combined ballot for all items of business to be voted on when you checked in for this meeting. Did we have any?
I'm not sure. We did.
I can dispense with reading this if okay. If you're a registered shareholder or proxy holder and did not receive a ballot, please raise your hand now, and a representative of the scrutineer will be around to give one to you. If you've already voted by proxy, please don't vote again as we've already told you twice. Management's proxy nominees will vote all proxies in favor of all matters put before this meeting in spite of the ballots being taken. I now present to the meeting the audited financial statements of Equinox Gold for the year ended December 31st, 2023, together with the auditor's report of the financial statements. Copies of these documents have been mailed to the shareholders who requested such statements, and they don't intend to read them at the meeting or will be here for hours.
We would be pleased, however, to deal with any questions regarding the financial statements during the corporate update following the formal business of the meeting. The next item of business is the board size. The board's articles require that its board consist of the greater of three directors or the number set by ordinary resolution. Equinox Gold has seeking approval to fix the number of directors at nine. I move and second a motion to increase the number of directors of the company from eight to nine unless there's any questions on them.
We have not received any questions.
Okay. For all those shareholders and proxy holders attending in person today, receive your vote on your ballot. Okay. The next item of business is the election of directors. Management nominates the following nine individuals to hold office until the next annual meeting of all shareholders or until their successors are elected or appointed: Ross Beaty, Len Boggio, Maryse Bélanger, Gordon Campbell, Trudy Curran, Sally Eyre, Marshall Koval, Fizul Siddiqui, Greg Smith. Each nominee has confirmed that they are prepared to serve as a director of Equinox Gold. Equinox Gold has adopted an advance notice policy that requires shareholders to give the company advance notice of proposed director nominations at the annual general meeting. Equinox Gold did not receive notice of any such nominations for this meeting. As a result, I declare the nominations closed, and I move and second a motion to elect each of the directors.
Unless there are any questions, I'll move on.
We have not received any questions.
Okay. The vote to approve this resolution is required to be taken by ballot, unfortunately. I direct that a ballot be taken. Again, as a reminder to those online, the polls are currently open for all items of business to be voted on at today's meeting. For those shareholders and proxy holders attending in person today, please record your vote for each nominee on your ballot. Yeah. And I mean, it's a little tedious. Well, maybe not. It's not so bad.
It's okay.
Yeah. Okay. Okay. The next item of business is the appointment of Equinox Gold's auditor. No, I thought we had to do one by one.
Oh, no.
That's.
No, it's yeah. Yeah, it's all. It's interesting.
Yeah. Good. Excellent. The next item of business is the appointment of Equinox Gold's auditor. I move and second a motion to appoint KPMG LLP as auditor of the company to hold office until the close of the next annual meeting of shareholders and that the board be authorized to fix KPMG's remuneration. Unless there are any questions, I will move on. But I will say to both Blakes and KPMG, these are our two largest external advisors. KPMG does all of our accounting. Blakes does our legal oversight, apart from what our internal counsel do. And I want to give a shout-out to them for appreciation for their good work. We've had no big disputes, and we have had great service from both of those professional firms. Thank you to them.
No questions.
Okay. No questions. We'll move on. The last item of business is the Say on Pay advisory vote . I move and second a motion that, on an advisory basis and not to diminish the role and responsibilities of the board, Equinox shareholders accept the approach to executive compensation disclosed in the company's management information circular dated March 25th, 2024, delivered in advance of the meeting. Unless there's questions, I'll move on.
Still no questions.
Let's move on. These are all the resolutions. We'll provide a few moments for shareholders and proxy holders to complete your electronic and paper ballots, if any. 30 seconds of silence.
Stop watching the running.
Turn around and look at that. Oh, and everything, dude. You can tell you're paying your lawyers a lot of money when they pay. If I was a law firm, I wouldn't worry about having a place like this because you want to be in a dungeon. That's where people work, right?
Oh, I got the window.
Oh, I didn't actually see you. I didn't know. Yeah, this is just too beautiful to want to work at that. Thank you, Rhylin Bailie.
On behalf of Computershare, I can confirm that the polls have now closed.
Thank you, Rhylin. I ask the scrutineer to compile the report regarding the results of voting on all business matters. Results of voting will be included with the minutes of this meeting and will be announced in a press release later today in accordance with the policies of the Toronto Stock Exchange. Is there any further business for the formal portion of this meeting?
There are no outstanding questions online related to the business of the meeting.
Since there's no further business, I move and second that this meeting now terminate and declare the formal part of this meeting to be concluded. Rhylin, can you please remind people how to access the corporate update website?
Sure. So anybody who's joining us online, you will need to disconnect from the AGM webcast and rejoin to the corporate update webcast. So if you go to our website, equinoxgold.com, on the homepage, you'll see a little blurb that says "Corporate Update with Ross Beaty, May 9th, 1:45 P.M." You need to log into that link, and we'll see you there in approximately 60 seconds. Thank you, everybody, for joining us. Chairman, any closing remarks?
No, I'll take all my website. Yeah. Operator?
Go ahead, operator.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes the meeting. You may now.