Finance committee  I'll say one quick thing on the territories. I was thrilled to get to up the Yukon earlier this year. We have 88,000 residents in the territories who serve as contributors and beneficiaries, so we see that as important. I was hoping to get to the Arctic Indigenous Investment Conference in June in Nunavut, so I was disappointed, but hopefully there will be next year.

Finance committee  Sorry, yes, it was about the employment numbers. At the moment, we're anticipating that the employment numbers will have a significant impact on the inflows into the fund. Based on our modelling, we expect a very small inflow into the fund this year, and then it picks up rapidly after that.

Finance committee  The 12.6% wouldn't be a record. We've had higher percentage returns for particular years. We had 18% in at least one fiscal year, but last year was a very strong year. I'd love to say to expect 12.6% in the future, but that would be a little optimistic.

Finance committee  Thank you for the kind comments at the beginning. I really appreciate them. I'll accept them on behalf of my 1,800 colleagues who do all the hard work. With respect to Mark Carney and his work on climate, we were one of only two pension funds involved in the task force for climate-related disclosure, chaired by Michael Bloomberg.

Finance committee  That refers to the reform and the legislation that was passed in 2016-17 for the additional CPP. That was a decision taken by provincial and federal governments. Back then, legislation was passed to increase the contribution rates. Those will gradually increase, both the rate of the contribution required on the earnings covered by the CPP and the upper limit on the covered earnings.

Finance committee  I would presume that was the case, but it's not our realm to get into the policy changes; our realm is to invest the money that comes to us. Clearly, there's an increased benefit that comes from that increased contribution. The goal is that, over time, the maximum benefit will rise from about 25% of pensionable earnings to 33% of pensionable earnings, once this all plays through.

Finance committee  One of the benefits of diversifying the portfolio globally is that hedge, if you will, so when the Canadian economy is being hit hard on a relative basis, the foreign assets to some extent will be valued higher, and vice versa. When the Canadian economy is doing well, then contributions in employment are high, which offsets any relative weakness from the international economy.

Finance committee  Thank you. I'm going to let Michel answer the first question, which is very much in his purview, and then I'll answer the second.

Finance committee  Okay. I'll try to do it in a minute. It's a huge question, really important question on board effectiveness. Page 48 and onward in our sustainable investing report, which is online, goes through all the reasons why we think gender diversity is a really important issue for company performance.

Finance committee  I'm very happy to. As of the fiscal year end, we have around 15.6% of the fund invested in Canada, or about $63.9 billion. One of the purposes of the fund, as originally set up, was to diversify the portfolio into a global portfolio. When we started, what we inherited from our predecessor was 100% domestic investment in Canada, and so we've been diversifying that gradually around the world where we have found good opportunities.

Finance committee  As I said earlier, we're believers in climate change. Climate change is happening. We believe in the energy transition. The energy transition will be under way towards a low-carbon economy over time. However, even the most optimistic projections, whether we like it or not, see a significant role for traditional energy for quite a while yet.

Finance committee  We have a rapidly expanding investment portfolio in renewable energy. We've been investing in it, and we've had a dedicated team since 2018. We've invested around the world, whether it's in wind, in solar, in hydro, and we continue to do so. For example, in the last few months, we created a joint venture with Enbridge in Europe for offshore wind.

Finance committee  Yes. It's a really important question. It's one that we have teams working on across the fund, trying to identify those trends, not just the shorter-term trends but the longer-term trends. Before I give a few more examples, we think that some of these trends will come back over time.

Finance committee  I'll say a couple of things, and I think this is one Michel Leduc may want to add a little bit on. On demographics, yes, Canada has an aging population, somewhat offset by net immigration, but it is a challenge for the country and for the fund. The chief actuary models that in and models in expectations for demographics and the aging of the population—birth rates, death rates, longevity rates, etc.

Finance committee  Yes. That's a terrific question. One of the things I did when I sat in my seat as CEO four years ago was to focus on our private market valuations. We had pretty good private market valuations, private asset evaluations, but we wanted to make sure that they were world-class. When my chief financial and risk officer, Neil Beaumont, arrived, we sat down shortly after he was hired and said, “Okay, we're going to make this approach really world-class.”