OTTAWA — Major Canadian banks and pension funds provided tens of billions of dollars to American contractors for the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, an investigation by the non-profit Stand.earth has found.
The group’s analysis of loan and share data found Canadian financial institutions backed multiple companies that have major contracts with ICE to provide equipment or services, through investments, loans and bonds totalling about US$35 billion.
The companies that benefited from those Canadian investments include: data analytics firm Palantir; major U.S. defence contractors General Dynamics and L3Harris; the IT firm CACI; and telecom giant AT&T. CoreCivic and Geo Group, which construct and manage detention centres, also benefited to a lesser extent.
Palantir, founded by major Republican donor Peter Thiel, supplies technology to ICE that helps it track individuals for detention and deportation.
Richard Brooks, finance director with Stand.earth, said Canadians should be alarmed to learn their savings and pensions are supporting U.S. President Donald Trump’s violent immigration crackdown and mass deportation campaign.
“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,” Brooks told The Canadian Press, and called on Parliament to conduct hearings.
Left-wing politicians reacted sharply to news of the reported transactions. Newly elected NDP Leader Avi Lewis said Canadian businesses and public pensions should not provide support to “Trump`s personal military arm.”
“Canadians are scandalized by ICE, and we’ve been consistent as a party across this country that we don’t think that Canadian businesses should be doing business with ICE,” Lewis told a news conference Monday in Winnipeg. “We certainly don’t think Canadian pension funds should be investing in the infrastructure of repression in the United States.”
NDP MP Jenny Kwan said the Stand.earth report demonstrates the need for “greater transparency and accountability” and a “reassessment” of the ethical frameworks guiding public pensions and financial institutions.