Canadian Pension Funds Are Financing the Exploitation of the Elderly
Canadian Pension Funds, profiting off substandard elderly care, are like snakes eating their own tails. Fund managers shovel eldercare profits into investments intended to benefit the elderly — but retirees can’t profit off their own immiseration.
Canadian pension funds support the retirements of beneficiaries while contributing to the overall unaffordability of retirement. (Getty Images)
In February 2022, Les fossoyeurs (The gravediggers) surged to the top of the French best-seller charts. A book of investigative journalism by Victor Castanet, Les fossoyeurs exposed the recent history of abuse and neglect at the European long-term care chain Orpea, an eldercare behemoth with over 1,100 homes in operation.
For Canadians, the story of elder exploitation was all too familiar. But it also had a grimly intimate connection — the Canadian Pension Plan (CPP) is a 15 percent stakeholder in Orpea. The exposé has put a magnifying glass on the privatized long-term care system and raised an uncomfortable question for Canadians: Why are our retirements contingent upon the exploitation of the elderly?
The Gravediggers
Les fossoyeurs has catalyzed an immense public response in France. A public inquiry has been set in motion and Orpea’s stock price has plummeted. Last month, the Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research and France’s two largest union federations, the CFDT and CGT, published their own report on financial impropriety at Orpea, specifically calling out the CPP as the company’s largest shareholder.
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