Hello. Welcome to Stantec's AGM. My name is Doug Ammerman. I'm the Chair of the Board of Directors of Stantec. I'd like to welcome you today. Today's meeting will be a little different than the past. We have a hybrid meeting. We have people who are obviously here in person and people who are joining us remotely. On behalf of the entire board, thanks for joining us on the AGM. Now, before we begin, I'd like to do something we do at every single Stantec meeting. We're going to have a safety moment. If there is an emergency, an alarm will sound directing you to go to the elevators, exit down the stairway, and we'll congregate down at 102nd Street by the Bell Tower. Further instructions will be going to our people that are online regarding the commencement of the meeting.
I'd like to begin with an introduction of some of the people joining us from Stantec. We have Gord Johnston, our President and CEO; Vito Culmone, our Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer; and also Paul Alpern, Executive Vice President and our General Counsel. They're available to answer any questions that arise. For you that are participating online, please use the online question-and-answer area on your portal. Also, what I'd like to do at this point is introduce the directors of Stantec. In addition to myself, we have Martin Aporta, Shelly Brown, who's here today; Angie Chin, Rick Ng, Gord Johnston, Chris Lopez, Marie-Lucie Morin, who's here today; and also Selena Wang-Dooka. I think it's appropriate to remember Pat Galloway. Pat, Patricia was our director. She joined the board in 2020.
She passed away here this last year on April, excuse me, September 26. She was a leader in engineering, civil engineering, GIGA projects, and resolution disputes. She was a great board member, and she'll be missed by all of us. I would also like to recognize Don Lowry. Many of you know him from being the past president of EPCOR. Don joined our board in May of 2013 and retired here this last January. Don led our Sustainability Committee. As many of you know, we just issued our 18th Annual Sustainability Report, which really distinguishes Stantec from our competition. We would like to thank Don for his contributions. We also have two new directors for consideration today. We have Rick Ng, who comes to Stantec with experience in mergers and acquisitions, and also strategic planning, and Chris Lopez.
Chris has accounting experience, financial experience, industry experience in a variety of areas, including mining in Canada, Mexico, Australia, and New Zealand. We think that these candidates will be great additions to the board. With that, Paul, I officially call the meeting to order. We will appoint Kyle Gould and Stephanie Tuss of Computershare to act as scrutineers of the meeting. Kyle and Stephanie did confirm that we do have a quorum today. Just as a reminder, only shareholders who had their certificates as of March 20, 2025, which is the record date of this meeting, are entitled to vote at this meeting. This meeting will consist of three parts today. The first part will consider the normal business matters of the meeting. The second part will open it up to questions and comments.
The third part will share the preliminary votes that come before the meeting. What we'll do with these results, the initial results will be preliminary. The actual votes will be posted on stantec.com and posted on SEDAR Plus and EDGAR. With that, Paul, you can review the voting procedures.
Thank you, Doug. Good morning. The business matters for today's meeting are described in the Management Information Circular dated March 20, 2025, which accompanied the Notice of Meeting. I'll take the Notice of Meeting as read. Every shareholder and proxy holder entitled to vote on each of the business matters brought before today's meeting has one vote in respect of each share held by the shareholder or proxy holder. If you've already voted by proxy, there's no need to vote again unless you wish to change your vote. Registered shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders who are physically present at today's meeting haven't voted in advance by ballot. Shareholders who have appointed management as their proxy holder will have their shares voted at the meeting by Gord Johnston. Shareholders who have not already voted in advance and proxy holders who are present have received three ballots at the registration desk.
If you did not receive ballot forms when you registered this morning and feel that you should have, please raise your hand now. A representative from Computershare will bring them to you. When you sign your ballots, please print your name clearly under your signature. For shareholders and proxy holders who have joined us virtually, please navigate to the tab within the virtual meeting room where the resolutions to be considered at today's meeting are presented. I instruct all polls to be open. You may click and vote now or wait until the matter to be voted upon is first presented. Polls will close after today's question period, and votes will be recorded in a nearly instantaneous manner. With that, Mr. Chair, I turn the meeting back to you.
As Paul grabs my notes, no. As a reminder, only shareholders who had their certificates as of March 20, 2025, which is the record date of the meeting, are the proxy holders entitled to vote. The first item of business is the financial statements. We have placed before the meeting Stantec's consolidated financial statements for the fiscal year ending December 31, 2024. These financial statements, along with the corresponding auditor's reports, have been made available at the registration desk as you entered today and are also available on our website at stantec.com. If any shareholders have any questions about the financial statements, we'll be happy to address them during the question-and-answer period. The second item is the election of the directors. We'll be electing nine directors today.
The information regarding each nominee appears in the proxy circular that was made available to everybody in advance of this meeting. I'll now ask Paul to nominate the directors.
Thank you, Doug. I nominate each of the persons whose name appears in the Management Information Circular under the heading Nominees for Election to Board of Directors to be elected as a director of Stantec and to hold office for the ensuing year or until his or her successor is elected or appointed.
Thank you, Paul. Any questions now on the election of our directors? Hearing none, we'll proceed with the vote. Please use your blue ballot for the election of the directors. For shareholders attending virtually, please use your direct vote for directors on the virtual site right now. At this point, we'll proceed to item number three, which is the appointment of our auditors. Paul.
Thank you. I move that PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP be reappointed auditors of Stantec for the 2025 fiscal year, that they hold office until the close of the next annual meeting of shareholders or until their successors are appointed, and the directors be authorized to fix their remuneration.
Thanks, Paul. Any questions on the appointment of our auditors? Hearing none, we'll proceed with the vote. At this point, please use your green ballot to vote for our appointment of our auditors. Shareholders joining virtually can vote for the appointment of the auditors at this time. Let's proceed then to item four, which is the non-binding vote on executive compensation. Paul, can I have another motion?
I move on an advisory basis and not to diminish the role and responsibilities of the Board of Directors that the approach to executive tax management information circular delivered in advance of today's meeting.
Thanks, Paul. I'll now put the motion before the shareholders. Are there any questions on that motion? Hearing none, we'll proceed on the vote. At this point, please use your yellow ballot to vote on the annual say-on-pay. Again, shareholders joining us virtually use the virtual meeting platform to vote. This does conclude the matters to be voted on. Again, shareholders joining virtually, please vote soon because after the question-and-answer period, the votes will be finalized. Now, while the votes are being finalized and tabulated, I would like to open up the floor to any questions and comments from shareholders. If you do have any questions, please state whether you are a shareholder or a proxy holder. If you're attending virtually, please use the question-and-answer period within the meeting platform. Yes, go ahead.
Yeah, I see Stuart as a shareholder. Are the shenanigans that Donald Trump is doing going to affect your bottom line?
The only part I heard was Donald Trump. So, what I'll do at this point is exit through that door. No, I'll ask Gord to come up and respond to that. Thank you.
Thanks, Doug.
Thanks, Doug. And thanks for your question. The question was related to, you know, to some of the uncertainty in the U.S. and how might that affect our business. What we've seen through the first quarter of this year, and we released our quarterly results this morning, is our companies performed extremely well. Our backlogs continue to grow. While there is a little bit of uncertainty in the U.S., we're finding that customer sentiment is beginning to strengthen again. You know, we've initially, there were some the tariffs came on, then they were off. There have been the negotiations with China now have started. We're seeing the temperature is sort of coming down a little bit. In general, we're finding sentiment of our clients, whether they're in the government space or the private sector space, continues to improve.
We see actually great opportunities for us in the U.S. Certainly, we saw that in Q1, and we anticipate that for the remainder of the year. Great. Thank you. Any other questions? Chris, are you receiving any questions there online? Okay. I have been informed by the moderator that there are no further questions. Now that the voting is closed, Paul, I will ask you to share the preliminary voting results.
Thanks, Doug. I have received a copy of the scrutineer's interim report. I wish to report that approximately 88,159,000 shares or 77.29% of the eligible shares have been voted at today's meeting. A very large majority of the votes cast were voted in favor of each of the matters brought before the meeting.
All right, Paul, thank you. These are the preliminary results. The actual results, once they're tabulated, will be posted on stantec.com. They'll be forwarded to our regulators. We will share those actual final results with you once we have them. On behalf of the full board, I want to thank our shareholders for their support for this. Just to conclude, I really would like to thank really the people at Stantec who are our clients that ensure that we have the opportunity to work on these projects for them, and our employees who really redefine all the time what's possible through some of the special things that we do, and then mostly the shareholders for your continued support. That concludes the meeting. Thanks for coming today.