A federal agency invested millions in a green energy firm accused of profiting from slave labour in China..The Canada Pension Plan Investment Board disclosed in its latest filings it holds $4 million worth of shares in Longi Green Energy Technology Company Ltd, a firm that describes itself as the world’s largest solar module manufacturer..According to Blacklock's Reporter, shipments of Longi solar panels to American buyers were intercepted last October 28 by U.S. Customs on suspicions the company relied on contractors that used Uyghur slaves. Longi Green was also named in a 2021 research paper on slave labour by U.K.’s Sheffield Hallam University..“Longi is a customer of many of the polysilicon companies that are engaged in labour transfers in the Uyghur region,” said the Sheffield report. Researchers wrote that Longi contractors used forced labour..The CPP Investment Board in an April 1 Code Of Conduct boasted of its ethical practices. “We are honest and transparent and we stick to our word,” said the Code. “We lead by example and speak up about any conduct we observe that contradicts our principles.”.“We are responsible for anything that is in our portfolio,” Michel Leduc, senior managing director for the Investment Board, testified at 2019 hearings of the House of Commons finance committee. “With regard to human rights, it’s not only recently that we have factored in human rights. We’ve been factoring in human rights for more than a decade.”.Conservative MP Tom Kmiec (Calgary Shepard) told the committee Canadians’ pension money should not be invested in companies profiting from genocide in China’s Xinjiang Province. “Concentration camps, I’m going to call them, because that is what the Uyghurs, Canadians of Uyghur heritage, have called them,” said Kmiec. “That is basically what they are.”.“The Chinese government calls them ‘re-education camps’ where they do training and education, but let’s be serious,” said Kmiec. “They are internment camps. Over half the population has been interned in the province of Xinjiang.”.The House of Commons was earlier told more than 40% of polysilicon used to manufacture solar panels originates from Xinjiang..“We know 41% of polysilicon which is used to produce solar panels, for all the environmentalists in the House, originates from Xinjiang,” Liberal MP Sameer Zuberi (Pierrefonds-Dollard, Que.) said in debate on a motion condemning China for human rights atrocities. The House of Commons passed the motion by a 266-0 vote on February 22, 2021..A separate Bill S-204 An Act To Amend The Customs Tariff pending in the Senate would outlaw Chinese imports suspected of relying on forced labour. “What’s happening in Xinjiang is Uyghur genocide,” said Senator Leo Housakos (Que.), sponsor of the bill. “Canada has a moral and legal obligation to prevent it.”
