Bill C-441 (Historical)

An Act to amend the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985 (disclosure of environmental, social and governance investment factors)

This enactment amends the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985 to require the administrator of a pension plan to make available to the public an annual report in respect of any environmental, social or governance factors that the administrator took into account in the previous fiscal year in the selection, retention or liquidation of investments under the administrator’s responsibility or in the exercise of any rights relating to those investments.

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I want to thank both of the witnesses.

I want to dig a bit into the best approaches to handle an issue that I think all of us around this table agree on. We are concerned that Canadian businesses, Canadian investment companies and Canadian pension funds are investing in vehicles that could be against values that Canadians hold dear. I think we agree on that around the table.

What I'm trying to figure out is the best way of doing that. There's a spectrum, from making things criminal, through to punishable, through to disclosable, all the way to permissible. It's a spectrum that I am sorting through.

I introduced Bill C-441 in 2009, a private member's bill—the place where good ideas go to die. This bill would have required pension funds to disclose investments, divestments or business decisions that had environmental, social and governance factors. The theory was that pension fund holders were put at risk if pension funds had investments in things that were bad, such as environmental degradation or labour practices that were wrong. This is especially so with pension funds, because these are long-term investments, and a pension fund member wants to have the capacity, over a long period of time, to know that their investment in a pension fund is going to yield good fruit. A coup is bad. Environmental degradation is bad. Bad labour practices, from which lawsuits are engendered, are bad. Human rights violations are bad.

Tell me a bit about your instinct on that spectrum of everything from criminal indictments for activities all the way through to permissible and “we don't care”.

This is for you, Mr. Payette, because you advise. I generally think risk-aversion is real, and if people have the right knowledge they will do the right thing, but maybe I'm naive.

Pension Benefits Standards Act

[Rob Oliphant, Liberal, Don Valley West, ON]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-441, An Act to amend the Pension Benefits Standards Act, 1985 (disclosure of environmental, social and governance investment factors).

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased this morning to introduce a bill to amend the Pension Benefits Standards Act.

This bill will require public and private pension plan administrators to disclose considerations given to environmental, social and governance factors in the selection, retention and liquidation of investments in their pension funds.

Millions of Canadians have growing concerns about the long-term sustainability of their pension plans. The current financial crisis has led them to a new understanding of risk in pension fund investing. Today risk assessment needs to take into account broader ethical considerations regarding long-term sustainability.

Pension plan members want to know whether their fund managers have asked questions about the companies they invest in, such as how a company treat its employees, where it buys its supplies and from whom, how a company contributes to the community in which it does business, whether its business practices are fair and, most importantly, can the environment, the earth, sustain its business activities.

I would like to thank my colleague, the hon. member for Scarborough—Guildwood, for seconding this bill.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)