BC Investment Management Corporation War Profiteering
April 3, 2007
In my daily research I stumbled across a simply stunning article about the BC Investment Management Corporation and its portfolio. "The B.C. government controls the BC Investment Management Corporation, which in turn controls $63 billion in pension fund investments for the Municipal Pension Plan, the College Pension Plan, the Public Service Pension Plan and the Teachers Pension Plan. As of March 31, 2004, these investments included $4.6 billion worth of stock in 251 corporations producing war materiel and/or contracting to provide goods or services to the Pentagon."
The 2005 article from No One Is Illegal details the BC Government's investments in companies profiteering from war.
Here are the highlights from the original article (the references are shown but not included here)
AMMUNITION: BC IMC holds $40,593,600 in SNC-Lavalin,
the huge engineering firm that is building the RAV line. SNC TEC, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SNC-Lavalin, is part of an international consortium that last year was awarded a five-year contract to supply the US Armed Forces with 300 million to 500 million bullets a year. (11) This contract was awarded by the Pentagon due to the fact that the single US Army-owned facility producing small arms ammunition is producing only a quarter of the bullets needed by the occupation forces. (12) This means that every time another Iraqi is killed by a.223 caliber bullet or a 7.62 mm bullet or a .50 caliber bullet coming from American automatic weapons, the question needs to be asked: were they killed by ammunition made by a company our pension funds have investments in? The odds are overwhelming that the answer will be yes.
AIRCRAFT: BC IMC holds $92,617,708 in stock from 8 of the top 10 aircraft manufacturers in the US – Lockheed, United Technologies, Raytheon, Rockwell, General Dynamics, Boeing, Northrup/Grumman and Textron–as well as a further $4,853,721 in the British aerospace firm BAE Systems. Together these corporations make virtually every aircraft used in the invasion and occupation of Iraq, including the C-130 gunships used in the siege of Fallujah, F-14, F-15, F-16 and F/A18 fighters, the AV8B Harrier, the F-117 Stealth fighter, B-1, B-2 and B-52 bombers, EA6B attack aircraft and reconnaissance aircraft like the E-3 Sentry and the U-2 spy plane. (13)
HELICOPTERS: BC IMC holds $230,353,722 in stock of five corporations that make transport and attack choppers for the US Armed Forces. These companies manufacture the AH-64 Apache attack helicopter (a consortium of Boeing and General Electric), the OH-58D Kiowa attack helicopter (Bell-Textron), the UH-60 Blackhawk (United Technologies) and the Vietnam-era UH-1 Huey troop transport and gunship (a consortium of Bell-Textron and Samsung). (14)
MISSILES: BC IMC holds $176,304,307 in stock from eight companies that supply missiles to the Pentagon (Raytheon, General Motors, British Aerospace (BAE), Texas Instruments, Lockheed-Martin, Boeing, General Electric and Daimler-Chrysler).
Between them these companies make at least 17 different missiles, including the AIM-7 Sparrow, AGM-88A HARM, AIM-132, AGM-65 Maverick, AIM-54 Phoenix, AIM-120 Slammer, AGM-45 Shrike, AGM-89 SRAM, AGM-142 HAVE-NAP and AIM-9 Sidewinder, as well as the anti-aircraft Stinger missile and the anti-armor TOW missile carried by ground troops. (15) At least four of the missiles made by these companies are used for delivery of nuclear weapons: Raytheon’s AGM-158 JASSM and BGM-109 Tomahawk cruise missile, British Aerospace’s Apache cruise missile, and Boeing’s AGM-86 cruise missile. (16) It should also be noted that General Electric manufactures components for at least one nuclear weapon, the B-61. (17)
BOMBS AND LANDMINES: Our provincial pension plans hold $71,868,348 worth of investments in 8 corporations that between them supply at least 16 different bombs to the US Armed Forces, including the BLU-109 Thermobaric bomb, the GBU-28 Bunker Buster, the Hydra 70, the M-26 and M-39, the GBU-10, -12 and -16, and the Paveway III smart bomb, among others. (18) This also includes Honeywell’s CBU-89 Gator and CBU-87 CEM, both of which are landmine delivery systems. (19) Despite the international ban on landmines (to which Canada is at least nominally a signatory), our pension funds include holdings worth $53,375,394 in no less than five landmine manufacturers, including Honeywell. The others are Lockheed-Martin,
which produces the M-26, ADAM, GEMSS, M-74 and CBU-78, as well as the WCMD delivery system (20); Raytheon, which manufactures the BLU-92B (21);
Texas Instruments, which makes the M-87 and BLU-92B (22); and Rockwell,
which also manufactures the BLU-92B as well as the M-87 (23).
DEPLETED URANIUM WEAPONS: BC IMC also has significant holdings (worth a total of $170,469,986) in stocks of manufacturers of depleted uranium weapons and delivery systems. These are Lockheed, whose GBU-28 bomb contains 1.5 metric tonnes of DU (24); Texas Instruments, who make the GBU-24 and GBU-27; Boeing, which produces the GBU-31 (25); and Northrup/Grumman, which makes the GBU-37B (26). Delivery systems include Boeing’s AH64 Apache attack chopper (27) and F-15 Strike Eagle (28). Lockheed-Martin’s subsidiary
General Dynamics manufactures the US Armed Forces’ main battle tank, the M1A1 Abrams, which relies on DU munitions (29). And, not least, General
Electric manufactures the GAU-8 cannon (30). The A-10 Warthog antitank attack aircraft is literally built around this 30mm cannon which is probably the single largest user of depleted uranium in the whole US armory (31).
The March 31, 2006 BCIMC PDF file details the current levels of investment, so the numbers in the original article are no longer valid but the investments are. The BC Government's investments are in these companies are in the billions of dollars.
For the full article visit the No One Is Illegal web site.