Ethical Pensions

Pension Information of Interest to PAGE BC Members

• Canadian Mining Companies & Investors Making a Killing, by Grahame Russell - On a given day, a Canadian might read the business section of her favourite newspaper or on-line news service, to check the price of gold or nickel and see how her investments are doing. Yet, the price of metals is not only the profits they bring to company directors, shareholders and other investors, from private equity funds to pension funds like the Canada Pension Plan (CPP), but also the prices that people pay. In terms of environmental destruction, harm to personal health and human rights violations. In today’s global order, where trans-national companies often operate with immunity from prosecution and accountability, shareholder and investor profits go, all too often, hand in hand with environmental destruction, harm to personal health and various human rights violations....(read more)
  
  
• 10 Myths about Ethical Investing - Do you believe in ethical investing in principle but worry about what that really means for your pension money? Are you unsure of what the ramifications of supporting a policy shift that insists on entical investing? This article debunks 10 common myths that cause teachers to shy away from insisting that the BCIMC take a leadership role in investing our pension fund.


• The “Dirty Baker’s Dozen” - from the portfolio of the British Columbia Investment Management Corporation, details about the ethics of 12 companies, by Paul Hutcheson. This article originally appeared in the summer 2008 issue of The Global Educator.


• The Profits of War, by Jim Pine, a Victoria Secondary teacher - "A couple of years ago, a retired editor from our local newspaper spoke to my media literacy class. He said that if you are confused by a media story – if it doesn’t make sense – to “follow the money”. Following the money has led me to the military corporate complex and, disturbingly, to the Teacher’s Pension Plan (TPP) that BCTF members pay into. After the environmental destruction and millions of lives lost in Vietnam, I thought that we in North America had learned the awful truth of the futility of war. But, yet again, we are at war – this time in Afghanistan and Iraq. Why? Let me share what I’ve learned about the relationship between the military and the monetary..... (read more)


• Darfur, the Case for Targeted Divestment, by Joel Stephanson - The Darfur conflict in western Sudan is now well into its sixth year. While it is tempting to speak in statistics rather thanparagraphs (hundreds of thousands are dead, and millions more are displaced), many people find individual stories of human experience and suffering far more compelling. Unfortunately, one does not need to go far online to find horrific stories of Sudanese origin.... (read more)


• Water Privatization and Pension Fund Investments, by Paul Hutcheson. This article originally appeared in the winter 2009 issue of The Global Educator.

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