Press release: Members of Canada’s Public Service Pension Plan ask Cabinet to remove Imperial Oil director from their pension’s board of directors
Toronto, ON | Traditional territories of the Wendat, Anishnaabeg, Haudenosaunee, Chippewas and Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation - Working and retired public servants from across Canada sent a letter today to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and his Cabinet asking them to remove Imperial Oil Director Miranda Hubbs from the board of the Public Sector Pension Investment Board (PSPIB) with cause.
The letter cites Ms. Hubbs’ role as a Director of Imperial Oil and Chair of the company’s Community Collaboration and Engagement Committee when Imperial Oil leaked millions of litres of oil sands tailings and toxic chemicals into Alberta waterways from its Kearl oil sands project and then hid it from regulators, the public and downstream Indigenous communities for months. Imperial Oil is now under investigation by Environment and Climate Change Canada for the incident, which was called “environmental racism” by the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation.
“If a Director of Imperial Oil is unable to fulfill her duties to act ethically and oversee climate-related financial risks as a Director of an oil company, I have little reason to believe she can do so as a Director of the Public Service Pension Investment Board,” says Cory Proulx, a member of the Canadian Armed Forces and contributor to the Canadian Forces Pension Fund. “What on earth is a Director of Imperial Oil doing on the Board of Directors of my pension fund?”
Concurrently a Director of both the PSPIB and Imperial Oil, the pension plan members cite Hubbs’ failure to uphold the ethical standards and core attributes and competencies that must be demonstrated by PSPIB Directors, as well as PSPIB’s Code of Conduct and Corporate Governance and Proxy Voting Principles. The working and retired federal employees also highlight Imperial Oil’s long history of climate pollution, environmental degradation and disregard for Indigenous communities, saying it is impossible for them to ascertain whether Ms. Hubbs will oversee PSPIB decisions on human rights, climate risk and fossil fuel investments in the interest of federal employees and retirees– or Imperial Oil’s short-term interests to profit off of oil and gas.
With $243.7 billion in assets under management, PSPIB is a Crown corporation sponsored by the Government of Canada, managing the pensions of over 900,000 active and retired federal employees, including public servants, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, and the Canadian Armed Forces and Reserve Force. Section 11(2) of the Public Sector Pension Investment Board Act enables the federal Cabinet to remove a Director of the PSPIB with cause.
“By signing this letter, I stand with Indigenous communities that are dealing with the direct impacts of Imperial Oil’s toxic tailings pollution,” says Tony Ferguson, a Program Officer at Natural Resources Canada and member of the Public Service Pension Plan. “Someone who serves as the Director of a company that violates Indigenous rights, works to undermine Canada’s climate commitments and casually pollutes our country’s lands and waters should not be on the board of my pension fund.”
At Imperial Oil’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) in May 2023, investors holding over 12.6 million shares in the oil company, including other Canadian pension funds, voted against Ms. Hubbs’ re-election as a company director.
In its rationale for voting against Ms. Hubbs’ re-election to Imperial Oil’s board, the British Columbia Investment Management Corporation, a provincial Crown corporation and investment manager for B.C.’s public pension funds, cited “a lack of oversight that led to major controversies related to insufficient engagement with Indigenous communities.”
The Investment Management Corporation of Ontario voted against Ms. Hubbs’ re-election, calling the committee responsible for climate risk oversight at Imperial Oil “not aligned with investor expectations on Net Zero by 2050 targets and commitments.”
In its vote against Ms. Hubbs, Ontario’s University Pension Plan said that the “UPP does not support the election of this nominee because they appear to have demonstrated a lack of sufficient ESG oversight in the past.”
The letter from Public Service Pension Plan members to Cabinet says that the actions of Imperial Oil while Ms. Hubbs serves on the company’s board fall short of the ethical standards required by the PSPIB and Canada’s federal public service. It says that Ms. Hubbs’ interests, actions and obligations as a Director of Imperial Oil are inconsistent with her fiduciary duty to invest in the best long-term interests of Public Service Pension Plan members and protect the reputation of PSPIB.
Background information
In February 2023, it was reported that Imperial Oil’s Kearl oil sands facility had leaked millions of litres of tailings and toxic wastewater containing dangerous levels of arsenic, dissolved metals and bitumen into muskeg and waterways in Alberta for nearly nine months. Imperial Oil first reported the leak to the Alberta Energy Regulator (AER) in May 2022, but neither Imperial Oil nor the AER informed the federal government, local Indigenous communities, or the public.
The Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation (ACFN) called the Imperial Oil leak “environmental racism” and issued a notice advising its members to avoid the Kearl site and stop eating any food hunted, fished or gathered in the area since May 2022. An ACFN elder said that companies like Imperial Oil have been denying leaks or spills since the industry started and that their use of the land was destroying her people. The lands manager for Smith’s Landing First Nation called Imperial Oil’s leaks “a direct infringement upon treaty rights.” The Dene Nation said that its “treaty lands, waters, birds, animals and families (are) being poisoned by tar sands developments in Alberta” and called for Imperial Oil to be charged. On May 4, 2023, Environment and Climate Change Canada opened a formal investigation into Imperial Oil’s tailings leak.
The Kearl tailings leak and Imperial Oil’s response is just the latest example of the company’s long history of pollution, environmental degradation and disregard for Indigenous communities impacted by its operations. Just last week, the AER reported that Imperial Oil had inadvertently released 900 litres of crude oil into a lagoon at the company’s Mahihkan plant in northeastern Alberta, staining Canada geese with oil.
Climate Action 100+, an international coalition of climate-concerned investors, rates Imperial Oil as failing to meet any criteria for achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, aligning capital expenditures with greenhouse gas reduction targets, or having a credible decarbonization strategy. Another assessment rated the company’s climate plan as “grossly insufficient” on measures of ambition, integrity and transition planning.
Imperial Oil and its industry lobby group, the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers (CAPP), have a well-documented history of lobbying to undermine robust climate policy and misleading the public about the role of oil and gas in a safe climate future. In one recent example, CAPP was actively pushing to weaken and delay climate risk disclosure requirements by Canadian regulators, at the same time that PSPIB and the Pension Investment Association of Canada were demanding more stringent and standardized disclosure.
The letter sent from Public Service Pension Plan members to the federal Cabinet, the Chair of the Board and President & CEO of PSP Investments, and the federal Public Sector Pension Advisory Committee can be found here.
For interview requests:
Patrick DeRochie, Senior Manager - patrick@shiftaction.ca, 416-576-2701
Adam Scott, Director - adamscott@shiftaction.ca, 416-347-3858
Shift Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health is a charitable initiative that works to protect pensions and the climate by bringing together beneficiaries and their pension funds to engage on the climate crisis. Shift is a project of MakeWay Canada.
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