Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Seem Vanasellia. I'm honored to serve as the Chair of the Board of TC Energy Corporation. It's a great pleasure of mine to welcome you all here today to our 2020 Annual Meeting of Common Shareholders. Thank you for joining with us today.
Before I begin, I need to note that certain statements made in the meeting contain forward looking information that are subject to important risks and uncertainties. For more information on these, please refer to our 2019 annual report. I would like to open with an acknowledgment that part of the land on which TC Energy operates contains the histories, cultures and rich traditions of indigenous groups across North America. We thank the original keepers of these lands, generations past, present and future for sharing their homelands with us. Joining me virtually and presenting with me today are Russ Girling, President and Chief Executive Officer and Chris
Apologies for the technical difficulties, everyone. We'll now ask our Chair of the Board to resume back from the script.
Ladies and gentlemen, this is Seem Vanasalj again. I apologize for the technical issues that we had with our virtual meeting. I will continue the meeting now. As I was saying, joining me virtually and presenting with me today are Russ Girling, President and Chief Executive Officer and Christine, Vice President, Law and Corporate Secretary. Chris will be acting as our secretary for this meeting and assisting with the moderation of any questions that you submit.
We are holding today's meeting in a fully virtual format as you see and as a consequence of the COVID-nineteen pandemic. Safety and responsibility are 2 of our core values and we put these values first in all our decisions. In current circumstances, it's inappropriate to hold an in person meeting that might put the health and well-being of our shareholders, employees and community at risk. Despite the challenges of a virtual meeting, we have done our best to replicate the elements of our in person meetings and we hope you find this experience as engaging. The technology we are using today allows our registered shareholders and duly appointed proxy holders to vote online and ask questions.
Please submit your questions using the message icon on your screen. Submit your questions as soon as possible to allow us to address them at the most appropriate point in our meeting. We appreciate your understanding and support for this virtual format. I do anticipate that we will return to our traditional physical meeting format next year as we recognize the importance of allowing our shareholders the opportunity to meet in person. In directing the company through this time of unprecedented challenge, the Board of Directors has great confidence in the strength and resilience of TC Energy's business model and growth fundamentals.
We're fortunate that as a business, we've been able to respond and adapt quickly to continue to operate with very little disruption. We have an outstanding senior leadership team led by Russ Girling that have been incredibly responsive and agile. I'd now like to call on Russ to address the meeting. Ladies and gentlemen, Russ Girling.
Thank you, Seem, and good morning, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Russ Girling. As Seem said, I'm the President and CEO of TC Energy Corporation. A warm welcome and thank you to everyone participating in this virtual meeting. As global events surrounding COVID-nineteen continue to unfold, it's clear that the health and economic impact on millions of people around the world will be significant and they will be long term.
While many of us remain isolated in our homes, we continue to be inspired by the efforts of healthcare workers, researchers and governments. We're very grateful for their vital work protecting society, caring for those directly affected and studying the virus to develop the tools needed to overcome this pandemic and to recover as quickly as possible. At the same time, many others are hard at work making sure that we have access to food, water, transportation, communication services and many more things. On behalf of everyone here at TC Energy, I'd like to express my appreciation for everything these dedicated people are doing to ensure that the supply chains and delivery systems that we rely on every day continue to operate. All of the energy services TC Energy provides have been deemed essential in every jurisdiction in which we operate across North America and this is a responsibility that we take very seriously.
To support the critical need for reliable energy, operators in our control rooms and frontline operations across our systems have voluntarily stepped forward to physically distance themselves from their families and limit their possible contact with COVID-nineteen. I want to acknowledge and thank these employees and their families for their willingness to take such significant steps to ensure the energy people rely upon continues to be
a critical part
of our business across North America every day. Now more than ever, places like hospitals, grocery stores, factories and homes are relying on uninterrupted natural gas and electricity to keep warm and power lights and appliances. Across the continent, the oil we transport is converted into transportation fuel that supports the delivery of critical food and supplies to where they're needed the most. The energy industry's important role in North America's social and economic fabric has never been more pronounced and I've never been more prouder to be part of that value chain. Like many others, thousands of TC Energy employees are now working remotely.
However, I can assure you those who must be physically on our job sites are following rigorous health, hygiene, travel restriction and physical distancing protocol.
Ladies and gentlemen, I believe Russ Girling has unfortunately run into the same technical difficulty. So I will ask for your patience. And I'm confident that Russ will be able to reconnect to the meeting within a few minutes. Thank you for your patience.
All right. So as I said, the safety of our employees, contractors and our communities is our number one priority and I can tell you that that will not be compromised. So thank you everyone for following local health authority guidance, your adherence to suggested protocols. Your adherence to those protocols is critical to keeping your families and communities safe. I can tell you your efforts to reduce the spread will pave the path to getting people back to work quickly and safely and expediting our economic recovery.
This is a good time to talk about something that has been growing in importance to our investors, stakeholders, governments, which is our social, environmental and governance practices or ESG as is now commonly called. Given today's situation, I wanted to start with a social piece of this equation. Beyond the energy we provide, which impacts society in countless ways, TC Energy spends 1,000,000,000 of dollars that go directly back into the economy. Our labor costs provide families with the means to live and care for their loved ones. Some families at our company span into their 2nd gen and third generations as TC employees.
Our operational costs pay for supplies, parts and services that directly support small businesses, vendors and manufacturers who make up the backbone of our North American supply chains. Further to this, we contribute significantly to the many communities our systems traverse. In 2019 alone, we paid over $1,400,000,000 in income, property taxes and others that support things like roads, hospitals, schools in communities where we operate. This revenue will continue uninterrupted for hundreds of small communities that depend on the support for their economic recovery as this pandemic ends. In 2019, we donated over $28,000,000 to more than 1400 not for profit organizations to build stronger communities and we awarded over 900 post secondary scholarships to creative and ambitious students across our footprint to help them become industry's future workforce and future leaders.
These are just a couple of examples of our efforts to provide and build more sustainable communities. And we are proud to be one of the many companies in a larger industry that provides layers of significant social and economic benefit to North American society. We also support our employee directed charitable donations and volunteering because we know that nobody understands the specific needs of their communities better than the people who live and work there. For example, when our employees expressed the desire to help their neighbors in the COVID-nineteen crisis, we doubled our existing donation matching program to 200%. We have also opened our COVID-nineteen related donation program to members of the public.
They can also donate through our online giving portal and we'll match their donations 100%. These funds have been directed to support organizations like United Way, UNICEF, Feeding America and the Mexican Red Cross who are all helping with the COVID-nineteen response. To date, these efforts have raised over $2,600,000 and if you'd like to help us help our communities and have your donation matched, please visit our website. I would also like to offer a heartfelt thank you to our jointly owned company Bruce Power in Ontario. This facility provides emissionless electricity to 1 third of Ontario residents.
Bruce has donated much needed personal protective equipment to the Ontario healthcare system and is also supplying Cobalt-sixty that is being used by medical facilities worldwide to sterilize equipment and to assist in the fight against COVID-nineteen. Turning now to our environmental performance and practices here at TC Energy. In our company, we have over 500 experts and scientists working in environmental protection, indigenous engagement and landowner relations. These individuals pursued these career paths because they care deeply about environmental stewardship and they bring that enthusiasm and passion to their work every day here at TC Energy. We recognize and respect the rights of indigenous peoples and their distinct relationship to the land, Their traditional knowledge along with the input of our over 100,000 landowner partners is integrated in our environmental planning and land management practices.
Together these groups work to protect biodiversity, to manage emissions, and to reclaim land responsibly everywhere where we build and operate. Further, today we are investing $27,000,000,000 to enhance North America's natural gas infrastructure system, which will significantly reduce global greenhouse gas emissions as we support the transition from higher emission electricity sources both here on the continent and internationally through LNG exports and I'll touch on that a bit more in just a moment. From a governance perspective, our Board oversees all of our ESG practices and risk management programs and there is no better time than our AGM to demonstrate this oversight with all of our stakeholders. Strong governance has been a foundation to our company's long term success. Under our Board's guidance over the past 20 years, we've increased our asset base fourfold from $25,000,000,000 in about in 2000 to about $100,000,000,000 in assets today.
Over that same period of time, we've continuously grown earnings, cash flow and dividends per share. This growth would not have been possible without the long term financial discipline, strong risk management and a commitment to living by a set of values that guide everything we do. While the cornerstone of our strategic plan, sustainability for our company goes well beyond just financial performance. It includes our long term commitment to safety, meeting today's and future energy needs, while finding responsible solutions to minimize our environmental footprint and to ensure we make a positive contribution to the communities in which we operate. The trust of our shareholders have placed on us to deliver on that commitment is a responsibility we take very seriously and we will continue to report back to you on our progress.
So watch for a robust update in our 2020 Sustainability Report, which will be released this fall. Touching briefly on our financial performance, we speak of resilience through all phases of the economic cycle. A conservative financial discipline coupled with a focus on critical long term infrastructure with rate regulated business models and long term contracts with strong counterparties have provided us with stable revenues and continued access to capital to fund ongoing growth while at the same time allowing us to pay a secure and growing dividend. Looking back at our performance in 2019, we maximized the value of our $100,000,000,000 asset base. We placed $8,700,000,000 of new assets into service.
We generated record comparable earnings of approximately $3,900,000,000 or 4.4 $1 per common share and we reported record comparable funds generated from operations of $7,100,000,000 Our strong performance continued into the Q1 of 2020 with comparable earnings of $1.18 per share, an increase of 10% compared to the same period last year And similarly, comparable funds generated from operations of $2,100,000,000 were 17% higher than the same period last year. Based on the strength of our financial performance and our promising outlook for the future, in February, TC Energy's Board of Directors declared a first quarter 2020 dividend of $0.81 per common share, which is equivalent to $3.24 per common share on an annual basis. This represents an 8% increase over the amount declared in 2019 and is the 20th consecutive year our Board has raised the dividend. In addition to producing record financial results, we also continue to advance our industry leading capital program which now totals $43,000,000,000 As I mentioned earlier, over 60% of this capital program is focused on enhancing critical North American natural gas infrastructure. Those expenditures will improve access for Canadian and U.
S. Natural gas producers to premium markets. It will ensure consumers both on the continent and internationally have access to abundant, low cost, responsibly developed and reliable natural gas supply. And as I mentioned previously, not only is this capital spending good for the economy, it will also improve North American and worldwide energy security as well as improve standards of living and air quality globally for decades yet to come. Evidence of this can be seen in our 6 $600,000,000 Coastal Gasoline Pipeline project, which will have an initial capacity of 2,100,000,000 cubic feet a day and is expandable to 5,000,000,000 cubic feet a day.
It will connect growing, reliable and clean Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin natural gas supply to Asian markets. This project has strong support from local communities, and we've concluded agreements with all 20 elected indigenous nations along the route. Since we announced the project in June 2012, our team has had over 15,000 interactions and engagements with indigenous leaders, and we have awarded over $825,000,000 in contracts to indigenous and local businesses. Those contracts provide valuable jobs to communities across Northern British Columbia, where more than 1 third of the work we've completed to date on the project has been conducted by indigenous people. Overall, this project will generate more than 2,000 well paying jobs during construction, ongoing annual property tax and indigenous agreement revenue once it's in service, and ultimately Coastal GasLink will safely deliver cleaner fuel that will displace coal in Asian markets.
Canadian LNG exported to China will emit less than half the GHG emissions than the country's prevailing energy source, which is domestic coal. So as you can see, beyond its many social and economic benefits and the overwhelming support it has received, Coastal GasLink will also play a significant role in meeting global greenhouse gas reduction targets. Our capital program also includes the multibillion dollar life extension program at Bruce Power, which will ensure emission free, low cost, reliable electricity will be delivered to Ontario consumers for the next 4 decades. Over the next 15 years as Bruce Power's fleet is refurbished, our capital investment will have a very significant impact on the Ontario economy every year by both directly and indirectly creating and sustaining over 5,000 jobs, investing approximately $1,000,000,000 in labor income and purchasing over $750,000,000 in equipment, supplies and materials. Finally, a few comments on our recent decision to invest US8 $1,000,000,000 in the Keystone XL Pipeline project and the importance of that project to our industry and to North Despite the near term market uncertainty, longer term, we continue to believe access to reliable, responsibly produced oil from one of the world's largest reserves in a country with top ESG performance will be critical to the North American economy, its energy security and its standard of living.
Keystone XL will play a vital role in ensuring Canadian resources achieve fair market value. It will reduce U. S. Dependence on overseas oils and it will provide substantial economic and job creation benefits in both Canada and the United States throughout construction and once completed. More specifically, Keystone XL will provide 1,000 of well paying jobs and 1,000,000 of dollars in tax and economic stimulus to the communities across us.
In addition, every environmental review completed by the U. S. State Department over the past decade has concluded the building Keystone XL will lead to lower GHG emissions and enhance public safety compared to other transportation alternatives. We appreciate the ongoing backing of landowners, customers, indigenous groups and new niche partners in Canada and the United States who help secure support and key regulatory approvals for this very important project. And we thank the many government officials across North America for their advocacy without which this project could not have been advanced.
So like Coastal GasLink and our Bruce Power refurbishment, Keystone XL is rooted in a fundamental long term need for new energy infrastructure, improved public safety, reduced GHG emissions, economic support for communities, job creation and ultimately a reliable and affordable supply of energy. As we emerge from the pandemic, our $43,000,000,000 program will be critical in providing high paying jobs for those that need them and significant economic stimulus in depressed and remote communities across our system. However, I can assure you as we advance all of our projects across Canada, the United States and Mexico, we are guided 1st and foremost by keeping our workforce and community safe. And we will be working with local healthcare authorities, other experts, unions and our contractors implement all COVID-nineteen best practices and safety procedures. As we advance our $43,000,000,000 secured capital program and various other growth opportunities that are expected to emanate from our extensive North American footprint, we expect to continue growth in earnings and cash flow per share.
That growth is expected to support dividend growth of 8% to 10% through 2021 and 5% to 7% thereafter. Further details on our Q1 results can be found online, and I'd also invite you to join our analyst call at 1 P. M. Mountain Time today to hear more about our performance. Instructions for accessing that website can be found at tcenergy.com.
So at this time, I'll turn the meeting back over to our Chair, Sim Beneschelja, to conduct the formal business of our Annual General Meeting. Following that, I'll return for Q and A and some closing remarks. So, Seem, back to you.
Thank you, Russ. And again, I apologize to shareholders for the technical issues experienced. Hopefully, those are behind us. I now call the meeting to order and open the online balloting. For our agenda today, only registered common shareholders or appointed proxy holders who have registered for this meeting are entitled to participate via our online platform.
Guests, including those of you who are not registered shareholders or appointed proxy holders, will be able to view and listen to the meeting. As outlined in the management information circular dated February 27, 2020, the purpose of this meeting is for common shareholders to receive the 2019 consolidated financial statements and auditors report to elect the directors, to appoint the auditors and to consider and approve on an advisory basis TC Energy's approach to executive compensation. The meeting will proceed in the following manner. 1st, Chris Johnson will provide some additional instructions on how shareholders and proxy holders may vote and participate in our meeting today. Next, we will appoint Computershare Trust Company of Canada as our scrutineers for the meeting and confirm that a quorum to conduct business has been met.
We will then begin the formal meeting by reviewing each item of business set forth in the management information circular and answering your questions, if any, related to such formal items of business. For the purposes of our meeting today, I will be moving each item of business and Chris Johnson as Corporate Secretary will second each motion. We are both duly appointed proxy holders. Next, the voting results will be announced. And finally, after the formal business of the meeting has concluded, Russ will have the opportunity to answer shareholder questions raised at this meeting.
I'll now pass the meeting over to Chris Johnson to review the process for voting and asking questions.
Thank you, Steve. I will now provide some additional guidance on how to use our online platform. If you are a Webroot shareholder or a duly appointed proxy holder, you will be able to vote on each side of a business. The online balloting is already open. To vote, click on the Balloting button on the navigation bar.
Simply select your voting voice from the options shown on screen. A confirmation message will appear to show your vote has been received. Online voting will remain open throughout the meeting and while we discuss each item of business. Proxies held by management will be voted on the ballot as indicated in the proxies. If you have questions, select the messaging icon on your screen, enter your question and click the send button.
If your business pertains to an item of formal business, please state which item of business it relates to and it will be addressed at the appropriate time. Other questions related to TC Energy will be answered in the general question and answer session following the formal business of the meeting. Please keep your questions brief and note that we may consolidate similar questions. Again, please submit your questions early so that we can address them at the appropriate time. We may not have time to get to every question.
However, if you include your contact information with the question, we will endeavor to provide you with a written response in the course.
Thank you, Chris. We will now move to appoint our scrutineers. In accordance with by law number 1 of the company, I now appoint Stephen Bandola, a representative of Computershare Trust Company of Canada to act as scrutineer for this meeting. The preliminary report by the scrutineer indicates that a quorum has been met, and I would ask that they submit their final report on attendance when that is ready. Chris Johnson will now report on the mailing of the notice calling this meeting and advising us about the process the meeting will follow.
Chris?
Thank you, Seem. The mailing of the notice of availability of meeting materials and the form of proxy was completed by March 24, 2020 to common shareholders of record in accordance with applicable law. An affidavit of mailing dated April 22, 2020 attesting to the mailing of the notice and form of proxy was delivered by our transfer agent, Computershare Trust Company of Canada to us in advance of this meeting. We have required or requested management information circular and the annual report were mailed to shareholders. These documents have also been made available on the company's website.
Thank you, Chris. As notice of the meeting has been given and a quorum has been confirmed, I hereby declare that this meeting is duly called and constituted for the transaction of business. As a reminder, the balloting is open and you may vote on all items of business as we go through them. The first item of business is the tabling of the annual report, which includes the consolidated financial statements and the related auditors report. It has been made available for review by shareholders in accordance with applicable law.
The next item of business is the election of the directors, each of whom will hold office until the next annual meeting of shareholders or until their successors are earlier elected or appointed. And as we did not receive any additional nominations in accordance with our advanced notice by law, our Director nominees for the year are Stephen Stephan Krecher, Russ Girling, Randy Limbacher, John Lowe, Una Power, Mary Pat Solomon, Indira Samara Saqqara, Mike Stewart, Tivi VanDell, Steve Williams and myself, Seem Vanaselya. In addition, we have 3 new nominees for election this year, Mr. Michael Colbert, Ms. Susan Jones and Mr.
David McNaughton. All three of these nominees bring strong leadership and strategy skills to the Board, and we're extremely pleased to have them as nominees for election to the Board this year. And I know the Board will benefit from their strong business acumen. I do want to take note as well that Barry Jackson is not standing for reelection this year. He is retiring from the Board effective today.
Barry has served as a Director of TC Energy for over 17 years, during which time he has made significant contributions to the Board and its committees, including most recently as the Chair of the Human Resources Committee and a member of our Governance Committee. Barry also served a long tenure as TC Energy's Chair of the Board from 2,005 until 2017, during which time his wise leadership and strategic thinking were instrumental in growing the company. On behalf of my fellow board members, management and our shareholders, I want to express our deep appreciation to Barry for his years of leadership and outstanding service to the success of the company. Barry, it's been a privilege to work alongside you. The Board has set the number of directors to be elected today at 14.
Each nominee will serve for a term of 1 year, which expires at the 2021 Annual Meeting of Shareholders. I now move to nominate the 14 individuals named and described in the circular to serve as directors of the company, to hold office until the next annual meeting of shareholders or until their successors are elected or appointed.
I second the motion.
We will now open the floor to any questions on this item of business. Chris, can you report whether we've received any questions on this item?
No, Sam, we have not received any questions on this item of business.
Thank you, Chris. We will now then move on to the next item of business. I now move to appoint KPMG LLP Chartered Professional Accountants as the auditors of the company until the next annual meeting of shareholders, and I authorize the directors of TC Energy to fix their remuneration.
I second the motion.
Chris, are there any questions on this item?
No, Sam. We have not received any questions on the side of a business.
Okay. Thank you. The next item of business is the approval on an advisory basis of an ordinary resolution approving TC Energy's approach to executive compensation. The text of the resolution is set out in the management information circular. While the vote is on an advisory basis and not binding, the Board will take the results of the vote into account when considering future compensation and policy decisions.
I now move the resolution to accept on an advisory basis the company's approach to executive compensation as described in the management information circular.
I second the motion.
And Chris, have we received any questions on this item of business?
Yes, same. We've received 3 comments on this item of business from Nick Spooner at Federated Hermes, a U. K.-based global stewardship provider that represents clients with shareholdings in TC Energy. Seem, I'll ask you to provide a response to each of these comments in turn. The first comment is, we consider options to incentivize risk taking, which may not be aligned with the interest of long term shareholders such as our clients.
Should options be used, we do not find it appropriate for these to begin investing after 1 year and believe companies should be taking a longer term approach.
Thank you, Mr. Spooner for that question. And I think it's a good one. We do use stock options as an important component of our long term incentive compensation program. I think they provide incentive for our executives to focus on the long term success of the company and as well align the interest of our executives with those of our shareholders.
While our options vest in equal tranches over a 3 year period, I would note that they have an expiration date of 7 years. So they are clearly longer term in nature than our performance share unit program. And I'd also note that we have reduced the weighting of stock options relative to performance share units from 50% to 40% in the past year. And that is very much consistent with the trends in pure practice. So I do believe our current incentive compensation mix investing terms provide an appropriate balance of short, medium and longer term incentives.
Chris, can you go ahead with the second question or comment from Mr. Spooner?
Yes. The next comment also from the same shareholder is, we do not find that incentives that target achieving median performance to be particularly ambitious and would expect companies to have a higher ambition than this. We also do not find TSR or total shareholder return to be a particularly useful metric in reflecting the performance of directors due to the wide array of factors that drive this figure even on a relative basis?
Thank you for that. I'd respond here by saying that our compensation program is set within a competitive range of market median. And we believe that the threshold target and maximum payout levels set for a relative total shareholder return are appropriate, particularly given the inherent volatility of total shareholder return. And I think we've certainly seen that volatility in today's markets. Importantly, to your point, Mr.
Spooner, we use relative TSR as one of the metrics in our performance share unit program. But there's another metrics as well, which is cumulative EPS and that makes up the other 50% of the weighting. While there's no perfect performance metric, I believe that the combination of these two measures provides a balanced consideration of overall performance. And in that way, I think our performance share unit program is well designed to create strong alignment with both our internal business strategy, our peer performance and the experience of our shareholders. So I hope that's helpful.
And Chris, perhaps the 3rd comment?
Yes. The final comment is as follows. The oil and gas sector is under increasing pressure and there's uncertainty about the long term viability of continued expansion. Growth oriented metrics may not necessarily be incentivizing the right behavior and may lead to over development of fossil fuel infrastructure, which is not required, not aligned with the goals of the Paris agreement and delivers weak returns. We do not find it appropriate to include such metrics in the annual bonus.
My perspective is that it will take all forms of energy to meet growing global demand. We are currently investing $27,000,000,000 as you heard from Russ to enhance North America's natural gas infrastructure system. And that's going to significantly reduce global greenhouse gas emissions as we support the transition from higher emission electricity sources, both on the continent and internationally through LNG exports. And while we deliver this needed energy infrastructure, we're also continuing to look at ways to reduce our own greenhouse gas emissions and to support national and industry commitments to reduce emissions in line with the objectives set out by the Paris Agreement. So now more than ever to meet global demand and to support an orderly transition to a lower carbon economy, we need metrics to measure our success in delivering growth of needed energy infrastructure.
With that, Chris, are there any additional questions or comments from shareholders on this matter of business?
No, we have not received any further questions on the side of a business.
Thank you. As we've now concluded each of the formal items of business, we will pause for a moment to allow shareholders to complete the online balloting. If each shareholder could ensure they have submitted their votes, that would be greatly appreciated. So we'll just take a minute. I see that the balloting is now closed.
The corporate secretary has received the scrutineers preliminary report on attendance and the results of the votes. Chris, would you please provide the results to the meeting? Chris, are you there?
Yes. Thank you. I apologize for the disruption. Just to continue, we have received the preliminary reports of the scrutineer on the election of directors, the appointment of the auditor and the company's approach to executive compensation. The scrutineers report indicates that each item of business has received at least 94% votes cast in favor.
The detailed results for each item of business will be filed on SEDAR on Monday, May 4, 2020.
Thank you, Chris. Based on the results, I declare that all items of business have passed. I now direct that the scrutineers report on the ballots be annexed to the minutes of the meeting. As this now concludes our formal business, I move to conclude the meeting. Chris, will you second that motion?
Yes, I second the motion.
Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our meeting. Before we turn to questions from shareholders, I would like to first personally recognize the significant commitment of all of TC Energy employees and contractors who work hard to contribute to our results and deliver critical services safely and reliably. This is especially important to recognize in light of the adjustments and sacrifices our people have made in response to COVID-nineteen. So on behalf of the Board, thank you sincerely for your contributions and keep doing your great work and stay safe. I would also like to thank my fellow directors for their ongoing guidance and stewardship.
As a Board, we remain very focused on the company's strategy and objectives to sustain long term growth and performance by meeting today's energy needs, while finding responsible solutions for future energy demand. And I want to thank you, our shareholders, for your ongoing support. We remain forward focused on growing shareholder value and we look forward to continuing to serve you in 2020. We also sincerely hope that you and your families are staying healthy. So we will now take this opportunity to respond to any additional shareholder questions.
We may not have time to get to all of the questions, but if you include your contact information with your question, we will follow-up with a response. Chris, I will turn it over to you to read the first question.
Thank you, Seem. I'm just waiting for a moment to see if there are any questions. And it appears that there are none. So Russ, I'll turn it over to you for concluding remarks.
Thank you, Chris. Before I close and we get on to the more business questions, I'd like to extend my personal and heartfelt gratitude to Mr. Barry Jackson, whose leadership and advice I have always valued. Barry, you have been a true leader for our organization, and I will miss your patience, common demeanor and your wise counsel. On behalf of the management team, thank you, and we wish you and Marine the very best in your retirement.
At this time, I'd also like to welcome Mr. Michael Colbert, Mrs. Susan Jones and Mr. David MacNaughton to our Board. They bring a wealth of valuable experience and skills and the management team looks forward to working with all of you in the coming years.
I'll conclude this year's AGM by saying that is in times of crisis that you can see the true character of an organization and its people. And I can tell you again, this year, our people have exceeded all expectations. To our 7,300 employees, I thank you very much for your expertise, professionalism and dedication to living our values every day. You are the backbone of this company and over the past weeks you've responded to the situation around COVID with compassion, encourage and you make me very proud to be part of this team. That strong character has been exemplified by our executive team who again over the past 12 months have led our organization through another year of record growth and recently through the seamless transition of our operations during the COVID-nineteen crisis.
I sincerely thank you all for your leadership and you are the ones that make this a great company. I would also like to extend my to our Board of Directors for their guidance in keeping this ship pointed in the right direction and always ensuring we're doing the right things for the right reasons. Your stewardship is evident in our outcomes, both in good times and through difficulty. Because of you, our business remains strong, resilient, and we remain focused on delivering long term shareholder value. And lastly, to our shareholders, we are grateful for your ongoing support and thank you for taking the time to join us here today.
And please reach out to our Investor Relations team with any further questions or comments you might have. We hope that you and your families all keep safe and healthy, and we look forward to welcoming you at our next AGM in 2021. I'll now turn the call back to Chris, who will outline the rules engagement for our business Q and A.
Russ, we have not received any more questions from shareholders. So we can now conclude the meeting.
Alright. Again, thank you all for joining us and your continued support and do your best to remain health, safety healthy and safe and follow directives from local health authorities. I can tell you that is what will pave the path to reopening the economy and getting our lives back to normal as quickly as possible. So again, thank you all very much.