[R-G] Fwd: [COAT] CPP invests in Cdn missile firm tied to cluster bombs

[Anthony Fenton]

URL for this letter
Part of the campaign to oppose CANSEC, Canada's largest arms export  
show, Ottawa, May 27-28.

Open letter to the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) from  
the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT)

Dear Board Members of the CPPIB,

CPP investments now include a Canadian war industry known around the  
world as the exclusive supplier of a rocket weapons system that  
delivers a variety of warheads including those dispensing  
antipersonnel cluster munitions, antipersonnel fragmentation bombs and  
other warheads containing a mixture of white phosphorous and high  
explosives.

The most recent available " Canadian Equity Holdings" report of the  
CPPIB (March 31, 2008, p.7) states that the CPP's public equities  
include 1,134 shares of Magellan Aerospace Corp.  This report states  
the value of these shares as exactly $1 million.

The website of Magellan Aerospace Corp., which manufactures the CRV-7  
missile, has numerous promotional web pages with detailed factsheets  
and other materials lauding this weapons system and extolling the  
virtues of the specialized anti-personnel warheads that it is designed  
to deliver.
(Sources: Rotary Wing   Fixed Wing)

Literally hundreds of military-related websites around the world cite  
Magellan, and its Winnipeg-based subsidiary Bristol Aerospace, as the  
creator and source of the CRV-7 weapons system.

I presume that your board knows full well that it is investing in this  
particular weapons maker. And, I presume that you have no problem with  
this. Many Canadians however may well have serious problems with such  
investments done in their name.

I'm sure that you will have no problem finding legal opinions and  
other experts to assure you that such an investment in Magellan is  
legal, even though it is so closely linked to antipersonnel cluster  
munitions.  But whether it is illegal or not is totally irrelevant.   
It is morally reprehensible and that's bad enough. So please don't  
waste my time (or yours) telling me this is all very legal. Slavery  
was legal too, but that didn't make it okay or worth investing in, did  
it?

The CRV missile (which stands for "Canadian Rocket Vehicle") was  
created by Bristol using Canadian government funds. So, you may  
contend, this is a very nationalistic endeavour. I'm sure you realise  
that the CRV-7 air-to-ground rocket has also been fired from military  
helicopters and fixed wing warplanes that belong to various  
governments around the world that are currently engaged in major wars,  
including the war in Iraq which has so far killed an estimated 1.3  
million since 2003.

The Magellan Aerospace Corporation is a Canadian company that trades  
on the TSE under the code MAL. (Of course you see the irony here  
because you know that in French, "Mal" means "sick" or "bad.")

With no trace of irony, Magellan Aerospace describes its unique  
weapons as the "most compliant with Insensitive Munitions" and the  
"Safest to Use." Presumably, Canadians would not want their retirement  
savings invested in a weapons company known for either sensitive  
munitions or ones that were unsafe.

As for its safety features, when the antipersonnel cluster bombs and  
antipersonnel fragmentation bombs within the warheads carried by the  
Bristol's CRV-7 missiles explode, they create thousands of tiny,  
sharp, fast-flying metal fragments that the company says are  
specifically designed to maximize the shredding of human flesh. Now  
they don't exactly put it in those terms. They sanitise the message  
for their buyers by saying that each submunition contains "B-4 high  
explosive, and a scored interior body wall to optimize fragment size  
against personnel."

Does this sound "safe" to you?  Perhaps it is safe for the warfighter,  
but what about the children on the ground who are ripped apart when  
these things go off?

Is this how the CPP Investment Board thinks that Canadian workers,  
parents and grandparents want their retirement savings invested?

I want you to also consider your own kids and grandchildren. Perhaps  
some day when they surf the internet they may find reference to these  
facts and they may wonder how it was that you as a Board Member were  
able to countenance investing in such horror and mayhem. How, they  
will wonder, could you have accepted to do this?

Now Magellan of course is only one of dozens of war industries and  
weapons manufacturers that you are forcing Canadians to invest in.  I  
hate to focus on just one company. There are actually so many far  
worse war profiteers on your list of foreign public equities. Some of  
the world's largest weapons manufacturers are on your list. It is  
frankly appalling and disgusting.

But it is never too late to divest from war profiteers and to use some  
moral and ethical sense of what is right and decent in order to  
balance your perceived need to invest in profitable corporations  
without any regard for the human consequences of such investments.

Yours sincerely,
Richard Sanders
Coordinator, Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (COAT)
http://coat.ncf.ca

P.S. COAT is now involved in a campaign to oppose CANSEC, Canada's  
largest war industry trade show, coming to Ottawa May 27-28, 2009.
COAT's latest report exposes about 50 Canadian military exporters and  
their complicity in dozens of major foreign weapons systems.  Please  
look over this list, but NOT for ideas about new companies in which to  
invest our pension monies:

CC.: All MPs, Ottawa City Councillors, media