URAP Statement on the Canadian Pension Fund Investment in China
July 9, 2021
Toronto Star Editorial has reported that Canadian Pension Plan funds being invested in Chinese companies associated with human rights abuses of Uyghurs by China. URAP is pleased these concerns are being raised among Canadian investors, specifically about becoming complicit in the ongoing Uyghur Genocide. While the Canadian Parliament acknowledged earlier this year that a Uyghur Genocide was occurring in China, it remains “business as usual” for certain investors. Despite overwhelming evidence of the use of forced Uyghur Slave labour and despite the US and certain EU states imposing sanctions and being set to cut off investment ties with the genocidal Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime, the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) continues to invest billions of dollars its assets in these Chinese companies, in effect helping subsidize the ongoing atrocities.
The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) is in breach of its own Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) standards when its assets are invested in known human rights-violating companies such as Tencent Ltd. Tencent is accused of developing the monitoring and surveillance systems the CCP has used to target the Uyghur population.
Any profits earned by the CPPIB in the Chinese investment market is tainted. It is money earned off the backs of Uyghur Slave Labourers. China is currently running the world’s largest human-trafficking scheme by forcing Uyghurs to transfer from their homes in East Turkistan to the interior of China to work for free as slaves.
China has allowed no independent observers int the Uyghur region to investigate these horrific crimes of the Uyghur genocide. .
Canadians should be outraged that their money is being invested this way, and demand to end to any pension investments in the Chinese market while the Uyghur Genocide is occurring before the world’s warchful eyes. As Mehmet Tohti, the Executive Director of URAP point outs: “The Canada Pension plan has become a cash cow for China’s Communist Party and is thus complicit in the Uyghur Genocide the Party is carrying out. It is unacceptable that the CPPIB continues to invest in CCP-controlled companies.
These corporate entities are not transparent and under the direct control of either the CCP or the Chinese military. The Canada Pension Plan must immediately stop funneling Canadian assets to China and reinvest in locations and companies where Human Rights norms are respected and upheld.”
We Urge CPPIB to divest from the Chinese market in order to no longer be associated with profiting off Uyghur Slave Labour and being complicit in this modern-day Genocide
For more Information
Mehmet Tohti
Uyghur Rights Advocacy Project
613 261 8512