Thank you.
Good evening, Hon. members of the Special Committee on the Canada–People’s Republic of China Relationship (CACN).
My name is Daniel Garant, and I'm the Executive Vice-President and Group Head, Public Markets at the British Columbia Investment Management Corporation, or BCI. I'm here with my colleague, Jennifer Coulson, who is the Senior Managing Director and Global Head, Environmental Social and Governance, or ESG.
We are joining you from the traditional territories of the Lekwungen people and the Songhees, Esquimalt and W_SÁNEC first nations, where we are happy to work, live and play.
We welcome this opportunity to appear before you to answer your questions and to share insights on how BCI responsibly builds financially secure futures for our clients. We thank you for your patience as we gathered the necessary information to give the committee a thorough and transparent picture of our industry before confirming our appearance.
We are based in Victoria, B.C., and support 32 public sector clients, which include 11 public sector pension plans, three insurance funds and various special purpose funds. BCI is one of the largest institutional investors in Canada, with approximately $215 billion currently under management.
BCI takes our responsibility as fiduciaries very seriously. We support more than 715,000 pension beneficiaries and 2.5 million British Columbia workers. We focus on the long term, looking 70 years ahead and beyond, to try to sustain those values for our clients. BCI is proud of our level of accountability, demonstrated through our unique governance structure as an agent of the B.C. Crown, including the majority of our board being client representatives and our sole share being held by the Minister of Finance for the province.
My role at BCI is to manage a diversified portfolio of global investments that include index and active management strategies with respect to fixed incomes, shares, derivatives, currencies and absolute return investment strategies. I have been involved in investment management for more than 30 years and have acquired experience in public and private assets.
My colleague, Ms. Coulson, has extensive professional experience in environmentally responsible investment and resource management at BCI, as the Global Head of ESG. Ms. Coulson and her team of 16 ESG experts ensure that these factors are incorporated into the organization's operations and our investment processes. Our global ESG factors strategy includes integrating ESG practices into investment decisions, promoting positive change through engagement and interventions with the responsible authorities, investing in sustainable opportunities and sharing knowledge with a view to well informed decision-making.
We go above and beyond in our reporting obligations and provide audited financial statements for all investment pools, proxy disclosure for all of our public equities, and annual reports that are available on our website. We believe taking ESG matters into account enables investors to better understand, manage and mitigate risk and take advantage of opportunities associated with long-term investments.
In our due diligence, we simply do not invest until and unless a complete ESG and risk review is done. There are no exceptions.
To assist the committee with its study, we have proactively submitted our inventory of investments, which is available on our website, along with our 2022 annual report on ESG factors, and our guidelines on proxy voting, which explain investor expectations. These documents illustrate the transparency we provide every year to ensure that clients, recipients and…