Canadians may be passively funding human rights abuses in China, as a new report alleged that at least three federal and six provincial pension funds are investing in 12 Chinese companies involved in forced labour and internment programs for Uyghurs in Xinjiang.
Canadian pension holders are exposed to companies complicit in crimes against humanity through passive investment via Morgan Stanley’s Emerging Markets Index Fund and Morgan Stanley’s China Index Fund, according to the report, published on Nov. 21 by the UK-based NGO Hong Kong Watch, in collaboration with professor Laura Murphy at the University of Sheffield Hallam.
“Lawmakers and government officials must urgently consider how it could be morally defensible for federal employees’ pensions to be passively invested in companies complicit in gross human rights violations in the Uyghur Region,” said the report….