Take a moment to let the Canada Pension Plan know you demand they divest from companies complicit with war crimes and genocide.

Through October and early November, human rights advocates attended the Canada Pension Plan Investment stakeholder meetings in Ottawa, Regina, Winnipeg, Halifax, Charlottetown, Fredericton, St. John's and Vancouver. (Click the links for a sample of some of the interventions.) The final meeting, virtual can be viewed here.

The questions were met with support from the audience, and even applause from others in attendance. However, the answers were lacking, ignoring double standards, and at the last few meetings the CPP asked people to not record--guess they did not want their answers made public!

The responses from CPP Investment leadership ignored their own direct investments in 'war crimes' and instead indicated the Plan had indirect investments.

If we were to consider the investment in war crimes and genocide included in these indirect (indices) investments, it would be more than the $16 billion that has been pointed out to CPP. It would seem the CPP Investment executive and board were hoping to glace over the real issue, diverting from a direct answer about its direct investments.

For five years, the Canada Pension Plan has been told by tens of thousands of its contributors and recipients that investing in war crimes is not acceptable. These direct investments have been consistently brought to the CPP's attention.

However, eight months into the current genocide, the Canada Pension Plan had increased its investment in war crimes, and potentially genocide, to over $16 billion.

This includes over a quarter-million dollars invested in companies deemed by the UN to be in violation of international law, specifically, Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi Le-Israel, Booking Holdings, Israel Discount Bank, Mizrahi Tefahot Bank, Motorola Solutions, and Shufersal Ltd.

The Canada Pension Plan also includes companies potentially involved in the Israeli genocide being committed on the Palestinian people of Gaza through weapons and arms companies such as General Dynamics, L3Harris Technologies, Lockheed Martin Corp, Rheinmetall, Northrop Grumman Corp and others.  

Surveillance companies such as Palantir Technologies, companies involved in house demolitions such as Mitsubishi Corp, companies stealing resources from occupied Palestine such as Chevron Corp and Heidelberg Materials AG, along with many other companies complicit in war crimes are part of the Canada Pension Plan portfolio.

WSP continues to dominate the Canadian public equity fund of the Canada Pension Plan with a value of $3.4 Billion. This amount has increased from $1.68 Billion in 2020. In the fall of 2022, a submission was made to the UN to add WSP to the UN database. This was submitted by Al-Haq and Just Peace Advocates, and endorsed by 105 organizations, and we would expect the UN would seriously consider adding WSP to the update now underway.

The International Centre of Justice for Palestinians – Canada (“ICJP – Canada”) has provided the Government of Canada with notice of intent to seek the prosecution of Canadian officials who are allegedly complicit in Israel’s war crimes. ICJP Canada is also considering expanding the scope of its initiative to pursue accountability of Canadian companies who are allegedly complicit in Israel’s war crimes. Like Canada’s Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court applies to both state actors and private individuals. The latter makes it an offence to “aid, abet or otherwise assist in the commission of war crimes and crimes against humanity”.

The International Court of Justice has provided an advisory opinion that the Israeli occupation is illegal, and needs to be ended as rapidly as possible.  

The Court stated that States must “abstain from entering into economic or trade dealings with Israel concerning the Occupied Palestinian Territory or parts thereof which may entrench its unlawful presence in the territory”. An independent UN Commission interprets this to mean that States must cease all financial, trade, investment and economic relations with Israel that maintain the unlawful occupation or contribute to maintaining the occupation. States must carefully review any organization that is financially or politically supporting the unlawful occupation.

The CPPIB (Canada Pension Plan Investment Board) is entrusted with fiduciary responsibility of the Canadians' public pension plan and thus is expected to undertake enhanced due diligence to ensure that its investments are in line with Canada’s responsibility under international and domestic law.

Read more about CPPIB's investments in war crimes and, potentially, genocide.

Read the UN submission we made in regard to pensions to the UN Special Rapporteur Albanese's recent call.

Our demands:

1. CPPIB take immediate steps to divest from the companies listed on the UN database and ensure that no future investments include any companies on the UN database.
2. CPPIB review its current holdings based on the companies identified by AFSC Investigate and Who Profits, and divest from all companies involved in support of occupation, war crimes, apartheid, and genocide.
3. CPPIB to divest from WSP unless CPPIB can influence WSP to withdraw from the Jerusalem Light Rail project and to make a public statement that it has done so.
4. CPPIB put in place a transparent process to ensure that companies are vetted for violations of human rights and international law. This would involve reporting back publicly on the review that CPPIB committed to undertake in this regard in 2021.