Ontario Teachers Pension Protest

We’ll be outside the Ontario Teacher’s Pension Plan offices on February 11 offering passersby the choice of free coal (provided by the pension plan) and free apples (provided by actual retired teachers).

The Elementary Teachers Federation of Ontario has passed a motion directing their representative on the Ontario Teachers’ Federation to divest from fossil fuels, but the Pension Fund isn’t listening. The OSSTF is presenting a similar motion at their annual meeting in March, but the Pension Plan will probably ignore them too. Youth from Bristol have begged the plan not to expand their local airport, but the Pension fund managers are ignoring them. The pension fund is also expanding the London City airport in the face of considerable local opposition.

This is a non-disruptive action designed to inform teachers and the general public of the toxic (and financially risky) investments in their pension plan. Investments which include an open-pit coal mine in Australia (which is on fire), water utilies in Chile (where people are rioting because of the high cost of living), airports, oil companies and Teck Resources (which is currently trying to build the largest oil sands project ever).

So come, hang out, chat, eat some apples (or coal if you really want to, though we don’t advise it)…