Human Rights

ENMAX has developed specific policies and programs that support our obligations under Alberta's Human Rights legislation. Our Principles of Business Ethics outline expectations for employees and contractors acting on behalf of our organization and clearly prohibit discriminatory behaviour. As the scale of ENMAX operations grows, our organization will need to consider indirect influences on human rights such as sourcing materials internationally. Some initiatives related to human rights issues managed at ENMAX include the right to exercise freedom of association, and incidents of discrimination and are described below.

Union Representation

ENMAX has two collective agreements with members of the IBEW and CUPE and 65% of our workforce is unionized. ENMAX has a labour relations philosophy that includes recognizing and respecting the unions’ association and presence in our organization and supporting employee involvement with the unions.

ENMAX does not have any operations in which the right to exercise freedom of association or collective bargaining are at risk. Employees are encouraged to actively participate in union representative and leadership roles, and union leaders are engaged in our organization and our business.

While minimum notice periods are not specifically required for significant organizational changes, ENMAX consults with union representatives in advance of policies or business initiatives that directly impact union members.

ENMAX strives to be an employer of choice in our communities by offering a work environment that is healthy, secure and respectful. Our Respectful Workplace Policy supports this commitment. However, there were two discrimination complaints reported in 2009. One incident is under review through routine internal organizational procedures and one complaint is under review with the Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission.

In 2009, no incidents of violations of the rights of indigenous people or displacement occurred.

Anti-Corruption Management

There were no incidents of corruption in 2009. For greater certainty, there were no incidents in which employees were dismissed or disciplined for corruption; and there were no incidents when contracts with business partners were not renewed due to violations related to corruption. Instances of corruption would be detected in a number of ways: by anonymous reporting to the Safety and Ethics HelpLine, through direct reporting to management or members of the Compliance department, or through detection by audit and finance staff.

There were no concluded legal cases regarding corrupt practices brought against ENMAX or its employees during 2009.

Ethics Training

All employees are required to take training on the ENMAX Principles of Business Ethics upon hiring. The training is available online to all employees and can be taken at any time. Of the 318 employees who took the training in 2009, 184 were new hires and 134 were existing employees who chose to take the training voluntarily.

No business units were analyzed for risks related to corruption in 2009.

ENMAX does not currently conduct a formal risk assessment focused on corruption or include corruption as a risk factor in overall risk assessments. However, the organization does conduct a quarterly enterprise-wide risk assessment process of all business units. This process did not identify any corruption risk. This is likely due to the fact that, by operating primarily within Alberta, we are not exposed to foreign corruption risk and that we have policies, training and internal controls to address conflicts of interest and procurement practices.

There were no complaints regarding breaches of customer privacy and losses of customer data in 2009. There were 65 confirmed or potential instances of customer data being disclosed without consent contrary to the Code of Conduct Regulation, all of which have been reported to the Market Surveillance Administrator.