In November 2017, the Condominium Act was amended, and various mandated forms were introduced at that time to assist in standardizing information contained in Notices of Meetings for Annual General Meetings (AGMs).
Many management companies had pre-existing standard AGM packages and made slight modifications after November, by adding the mandated form of Notice of Meeting.
Unfortunately, many condo corporations are sending out AGM packages that include a large volume of material (by email and hard copies) and pages of unnecessary information, and in some cases, not including all of the required documentation. In addition, more recently, many condo corporations are proceeding with virtual AGMs using electronic voting. These meetings and voting procedures are different than the procedures used for in-person meetings, details of which are often not included in AGM packages.
Since registration for meetings and voting responsibilities can now be handled by a third party and owners are able to vote online through electronic ballots, this has essentially eliminated the need for proxies and, in many cases, information about completing proxies and instructions is no longer relevant.
All of this to say, it’s time to look at your AGM notice packages and streamline the material that is included with the Notice of Meeting.
In order to figure out what your package should look like, you need to determine what the Condominium Act requires. The following is a list of items often included in AGM packages broken down into categories of required, not required and recommended inclusions:
- Notice of Meeting- Required. This is a mandated form and must be completed for all owners meetings. If you are holding a virtual meeting with electronic voting, you will need to insert specific wording. The wording will be different depending upon whether you are holding a virtual meeting and electronic voting during the emergency period without a virtual meeting and electronic bylaw (Bill 190) or whether you are holding a virtual meeting with electronic voting pursuant to a by-law that the corporation already has in place.
- Agenda- Recommended. Although this is not required as a standalone item to be included with the Notice of Meeting, this document contains details as to how the AGM will be conducted and the order of items to be dealt with at the meeting. This document is important for the purposes of conducting a virtual meeting so that the Chair and Third-Party Provider/Moderator can coordinate the timing and procedures for the virtual meeting.
- Audited Financial Statements for the fiscal year end- Required.
- Minutes from the last AGM – Required. There may have been other owners’ meetings throughout the year and if so, those minutes should be included as well. If this is your first AGM, you may be approving the turnover meeting minutes.
- Candidate disclosure statements- Required. Any candidate disclosure statements received by the due date set out in the preliminary notice must be included in the notice package. Usually there will also be bios/resumes submitted by the candidates which should also be included.
- A copy of the text of subsection 29 (1) of the Condominium Act and section 11.6 of the regulations– Required. This requirement is set out in subsection 12(8) of the regulation. Since section 29(1) only sets out the minimum qualifications for directors in the Condominium Act and section 11.6 of the regulation only references the disclosure items for candidates that is also contained in the candidate disclosure form, it is interesting to note that there is nothing requiring the Corporation to notify owners what further qualifications a candidate must have if the Corporation has additional qualifications in its by-laws. This is something that a Corporation may want to add to this document.
- Information Circular- Not Required. This is a document included in almost every AGM notice package and is one that needs to be customized to the particular meeting if included. We suggest a short information document about the process of virtual meetings and electronic voting, if applicable.
- Proxy Form- Not Required. Many corporations that are doing virtual meetings and electronic voting, are not encouraging the use of proxies. If the information form is provided (noted in 7) setting out the process of virtual meetings and electronic voting, reference can be made to the link on the Condominium Authority of Ontario’s website for an owner to download a proxy form. Of course, if owners do not have an email address or access to a computer, they may need to get a hard copy of a proxy form, so you can determine whether or not it is necessary to include a form of proxy in the AGM notice package.
- PIC and Insurance Certificate- Not Required. PICs are to be made available at the AGM. That does not mean it has to be included in an AGM Notice package.
- Directors Report- Not Required.
- Other material that more that 15% of the owners have requested be included that was received by the due date- If Received, Required.
- Other agenda items to be voted on at the AGM- Required. This includes such items as by-laws or any other documentation which is the subject matter of a vote at the AGM.
