Montréal, April 4, 2016 – Cogeco Connexion is pleased to announce that it has received an Employment Equity Achievement Award (EEAA) in the Outstanding Commitment category from Employment and Social Development Canada. The award was presented this past Friday in Montréal during an event bringing together private-sector employers that are subject to federal regulation to discuss and share best practices in employment equity.

“I am very proud of this recognition of our tangible commitment to making Cogeco Connexion a diversified and inclusive company,” said Louise St-Pierre, President and Chief Executive Officer of Cogeco Connexion. “Diversity and equity are fundamental values that must be solidly rooted in the corporate culture. They are powerful drivers of innovation that are major vectors for growth.”

For her part, Liette Vigneault, Vice President, Human Resources and Communications, Cogeco Connexion, stated: “We are very enthusiastically implementing a series of initiatives that we have developed within our three-year plan for promoting and incorporating employment equity and diversity at Cogeco Connexion. From hiring and training to our employees’ participation in activities that are both structuring and informative, we are attaining important milestones from one quarter to the next that are making us a company where diversity is perceived as an added value.” 

Cogeco Connexion’s three-year employment equity and diversity plan stands out for including initiatives that target every stage of an employee’s lifecycle at the company. The plan offers employees an extensive range of tools and guidelines, as well as training and awareness-raising activities, including a mandatory training for managers. Among the tools and activities comprised in the plan, Cogeco Connexion held a 3^rd edition of the Diversity Week, planned in all of its offices, in addition to having an intranet section dedicated to equity and diversity which offers a variety of detailed information including contents that are presented by its executive management team. The plan also includes rigorous measurement and evaluation tools for monitoring employees’ progress throughout the year, enabling adjustments to be made where necessary in order to maximize benefits for the company.

2016 is the first year of the EEAA. The category in which Cogeco Connexion received an award recognizes employers who have demonstrated outstanding commitment in implementing their employment equity plans by instituting measures to remove barriers, special measures and/or positive policies and practices to achieve tangible results.

More information about the 2016 EEAA are available in the press release of the Government of Canada.

 

Cogeco Connexion at a glance:

-        Wholly-owned subsidiary of Cogeco Communications Inc.

-        2,550 employees

-        Customer segments: consumer and business

-        Offering: video, high-speed Internet, telephony, fibre-based data and voice transmission, and cloud-based applications for businesses

-        11,000 km of linear optical fibre between Windsor, Ontario, and Gaspé, Québec

-        Hybrid network: optical fibre and coaxial cable

-        Fibre-optic network since 1990

-        Internet download speeds provided: up to 250 megabits per second

-        Community television stations: 15 in Québec and 22 in Ontario, with close to 1,000 volunteers

 

ABOUT COGECO CONNEXION

Cogeco Connexion (www.cogeco.ca) regroups the Canadian cable operations of Cogeco Communications Inc. Cogeco Connexion is the second-largest cable operator in Ontario and Québec in terms of the number of basic cable service customers served. It provides its residential and small business customers with video, Internet and telephony services through its two-way broadband fibre-rich network. Cogeco Communications Inc. is a communications corporation and is the 11th-largest hybrid fibre coaxial cable operator in North America operating in Canada under the Cogeco Connexion brand name in Québec and Ontario, and in the United States through its subsidiary Atlantic Broadband in western Pennsylvania, south Florida, Maryland/Delaware, South Carolina and eastern Connecticut. Through Cogeco Peer 1, Cogeco Communications Inc. provides its business customers with a suite of information technology services (colocation, network connectivity, managed hosting, cloud services and managed IT services), through its 21 data centres, extensive FastFiber Network^TM and more than 50 points-of-presence in North America and Europe. Cogeco Communications Inc.’s subordinate voting shares are listed on the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX: CCA).

 

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Information and interview requests:

Katherine Chartrand

Director, Public Relations

Cogeco Connexion

514 764-4674

katherine.chartrand@cogeco.com