The Canada Pension Plan (CPP) is now investing over $1 Billion in 31 of the World's Top 100 War Industries (Click the link above for a data table listing CPP investments in the top global weapons makers.)
On Monday, June 6, the CPP Investment Board (CPPIB) is holding public consultations in nine Canadian cities. Here's where and when these meetings are taking place.
Thanks to the CPP, millions of Canadians are being forced to invest our retirement savings in companies making a slew of military products from nuclear weapons systems, to cluster munitions, F-35 warplanes and many other major weapons systems. Included, of course, is General Dynamics (GD) the parent company of London Ontario's GD Land Systems Canada, which has been supplying Saudi Arabia with armoured vehicles for about 30 years.
The CPP is also now investing about $5.5 billion in 72 companies linked to Israel's military-, police-, surveillance-, prison-industrial complex.
What better way to spread our much-heralded "Canadian Values" around the world than to support warmongering corporate elites, and Israeli Apartheid? Let's hear it for Canada, the noble "Peaceable Kingdom,"
But let's not ignore the fact that our good ole CPP retirement portfolio also includes many of the world's largest corporate profiteers in these fine sectors of the economy:
- oil
- mining
- tobacco
- sweatshops
So what ya gonna do? Capitalism sucks, eh?
Well... Next week, on Monday, June 6, the CPP Investment Board (CPPIB) is holding public consultations in nine Canadian cities. Here's where and when these meetings are taking place. (You can also click that link to pre-register for their official webcast.)
Or, you can show up at one of the CPPIB's live meetings and hold up a picket sign, unfurl a banner, sing a song, ask a question (or five), and/or otherwise stand up and give them a (nonviolent) piece of your mind. (You've already given them your money.)
These public consultations on Monday are only held once every two years.
Yes, despite its lip service to ethical investment, the CPPIB is duty bound by it's legal obligation to maximise profits. In other words, they'd get in trouble if they did grow a conscience that made them divest from companies that profit from war, environmental destruction and the flagrant abuse of labour rights. That's all perfectly legal.
However, these meetings are still an opportunity raise public awareness about CPP's investments in some of the world's most notorious merchants of death and destruction.
