Non-Financial Disclosure: Canada’s Business Leaders Want
Publicly Traded Companies to Disclose Any Information that
Could Affect Revenue or Liability Exposure
BDO Dunwoody/Chamber Weekly CEO/Business Leader Poll
by COMPAS in the Financial Post
for Publication November 22, 2004
COMPAS Inc.
Public Opinion and Customer Research
November 22, 2004
Non-Financial Disclosure
A BDO Dunwoody/Chamber Weekly CEO/Business Leader Poll
by COMPAS in the Financial Post for Publication November 22, 2004
www.compas.ca
2
1.0 Introduction
In the era of Sarbanes Oxley and increased financial scrutiny of publicly
traded companies, Canada’s business leaders say that disclosure of financial
information does not go far enough. CEOs and business leaders in this
business panel say there is good reason to require publicly traded companies to
disclose important non-financial information to investors, and hold the
management and audit committees subject to law if they do not.
Specifically, investors should be notified as soon as possible of any non-
financial information that could affect a company’s revenue or liability exposure.
Information on product safety, as in the case of Merck’s Vioxx, tops the list
followed by information on environment impacts like clean up costs, about the
efficacy or quality of products, and information on workplace safety concerns.
The only non-financial information respondents do not appear to be acutely
concerned with disclosing to investors is information related to internal lawsuits,
for example sexual harassment or discrimination cases.
These are the key findings form this week’s web-survey of CEOs and
business leaders for publication in the National Post under the sponsorship of
BDO Dunwoody and the Canadian Chamber of Commerce.
2.0 Overwhelming (3:1) Support for Mandated Non-
Financial Disclosure
Almost three quarter of Canada’s business leaders day, “non-financial
information about product safety, as in the case of Merck and Vioxx