The Globe and Mail reports in its Friday, June 28, edition that dividends offer growth and income to protect against market fluctuations. The Globe's guest columnist Gary Christie writes in the Cruncher column he tries to identify outperforming Canadian stocks with attractive dividends. He began by screening for Canadian stocks with a market capitalization of $1-billion or more, which limited his search to the largest and most stable stocks. To find stocks with attractive dividend levels, he screened for dividend yields of 3 per cent or more. To identify stocks with sustainable dividends, he screened for a dividend coverage ratio of 100 per cent or higher. He says this measure reveals how many times the company's earnings can cover the dividend payout -- higher dividend coverage ratios are preferred. Finally, he filtered for Canadian stocks that have outperformed the S&P/TSX 60 Index year-to-date. Out of 13 companies that made the list Suncor Energy was at the top of it. It has the second-largest market cap in the group at $65.7-billion. The stock has a dividend yield of 4.3 per cent and a healthy dividend coverage of 283 per cent. The stock price is up 19.4 per cent year-to-date.