Update July 2019: We won! CPP has divested from GeoGroup and CoreCivic.
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Original petition text:
Tens of thousands of children and families are being detained in horrific conditions against their will in US immigration detention centres run by massive corporations like Geo Group and CoreCivic.
And the Canada Pension Plan (CPP) has quietly and massively increased its investment in these corporations that are ripping families apart by more than 1300% in the last year.
Our retirement savings should not fund brutal human rights abuses.
The CPP works for people in Canada to make the best investments possible and has guidelines for social responsibility. It needs to hear from us -- its investors -- to let it know that we won’t allow our pensions to fund for-profit prison companies.
Please join me in telling the CPP Investment Board to divest from Geo Group and CoreCivic now.
While we were watching images of children being ripped from their parents and locked in cages, the CPP was quietly increasing its investments in Geo Group by almost 13 fold and more than doubled its investment in CoreCivic from 2017 to 2018. Our pensions are now invested to the tune of almost $6 million in the two biggest for profit prison corporations in the US.
CoreCivic and GEO Group are private-prison companies that have built many of the detention centres that house the families Trump's policies have torn apart. Sixty per cent of immigrants incarcerated under the Trump administration are held in private prisons built by these companies.
This is also a critical moment to force pressure on the CPP: starting this month, CPP Investment Board is hosting public consultations that are only held once every two years. That makes now the most critical and impactful moment for the CPP to hear from us.
Let the CPP Investment Board know that funding for-profit prisons is not OK. Sign the petition today.
SumOfUs is working to stop profit prisons and the prevent families from being torn apart. When we found out that tech companies like Microsoft had multi-million dollar contracts with Immigration Customs Enforcement (ICE) who literally steal children away from their families at the borders, over 73,000 members like you signed a petition. And we delivered that petition right to Microsoft’s door in Seattle and let executives know we won’t stand idly by while it supports child detention.
We know that, as contributors to the CPP, if we work together we have the power to shift the investments and ensure that our money isn’t funding brutal for-profit prisons.
More information
CBS. 16 October 2018.
The Guardian. 12 October 2018.
