‘It is actually being used to invest and attempt to profit from the violence that is happening in the United States right now,’ Stand.earth told The Canadian Press
A new investigation by non-profit Stand.earth has thrust Canadian public pension funds into the spotlight, revealing that more than US$2.5 billion in pension assets are invested in companies holding major contracts with US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), raising questions about ethical investment frameworks across the country's largest retirement systems.
According to the analysis, the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) leads the way with an estimated US$1.6 billion invested in ICE-connected firms, a figure that rivals the exposure of the California Public Employees' Retirement System (CalPERS), the largest public pension fund in the United States.
La Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (formerly CDPQ), British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI), Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan (OTPP), Public Sector Pension (PSP), Investment Management Corporation of Ontario (IMCO), Healthcare of Ontario Pension Plan (HOOPP), Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS), Alberta Investment Management Corp (AIMCO) and Vestcor Inc - which manages New Brunswick public pensions - also round out the list of major Canadian pension investors identified in the report.
Some of the aforenamed pension funds did not reply to BPM's request to comment at the time of publication of this story.
Richard Brooks, finance director at Stand.earth, told The Canadian Press the scale of CPP's involvement was the investigation's most striking discovery.
"For CPP to be investing to the same scale that the largest pension fund in the United States is investing in these companies really blew me away," Brooks told the Canadian Press, adding that Canadians expect their pension contributions to build a secure retirement and not to fund border surveillance or immigration detention operations.
“We think it’s important for Canadians to know that their money - their savings in the bank, their mortgage or their hard-earned pension - is not agnostic money. It is actually being used to invest and attempt to profit from the violence that is happening in the United States right now,” added Brooks.
Stand.earth's analysis, which drew on US Securities and Exchange Commission filings and data from financial intelligence firm LSEG, found that Canadian financial institutions - including pensions and the country's Big Five banks - have collectively channelled approximately US$35 billion into companies that supply ICE with equipment, technology, and services.
The recipient firms include defence contractors General Dynamics and L3Harris, analytics firm Palantir, IT services provider CACI, telecom giant AT&T, and private detention operators CoreCivic and Geo Group.
Most of the underlying ICE contracts have been issued since 2025 through the agency or its parent department, Homeland Security, according to the advocacy group.
“When Canadians contribute to their pensions or invest in their banks or put their savings into banks, they expect that money is going to go into building a secure future, not into border surveillance, not into ripping children out of their parents’ arms and taking them into detention facilities, not into surveilling,” Brooks said.
Meanwhile, NDP MP Jenny Kwan called the report "deeply troubling," stating that the findings demonstrate a need for "greater transparency and accountability" in how public pensions allocate capital. She urged a reassessment of the ethical frameworks guiding pension fund portfolios.
The federal government, however, has signalled it has no intention of intervening. A spokesperson for Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne said Canadian pension funds "are governed and managed independently" and operate at arm's length from government.
"Their investment strategies are theirs to own, and guided by independent and professional boards of directors, who oversee, among other things, risk management and investment policies," John Fragos told The Canadian Press.
ICE has faced sustained criticism and legal challenges over the forceful methods employed by its agents and accusations of civil rights abuses during large-scale immigration roundups.
In Minnesota, federal agents killed two American citizens as part of an enforcement operation, and since President Trump took office in January 2025, dozens of detainees, among them a Canadian national, have died while in ICE custody.
