Military money

Tim Miller Dyck

Editor/Publisher

I’ve just returned from the Mennonite Church Saskatchewan annual delegate sessions held at First Mennonite Church in Saskatoon, Sask. My thanks to all those who I had a chance to meet there and for your feedback on the magazine.

One of the two roundtable discussion times was on “Worshipping with my lifestyle: Response to Canada’s increased militarization.” Eileen Klassen Hamm, Peace and Justice director for Mennonite Central Committee Saskatchewan and a member at Wildwood Mennonite Church in Saskatoon, described how Canada has basically dropped its historic commitment to UN peacekeeping in favour of military combat campaigns.

It isn’t just our taxes that go into military spending, though. Klassen Hamm also noted that our Canada Pension Plan (CPP) fund, to which working Canadians must make mandatory contributions, is part-owner of numerous military contractors, including Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin. According to the Coalition to Oppose the Arms Trade (coat.openconcept.ca/cpp), CPP has more than $2.5 billion invested in military corporations.

I noticed, though, as I was reading through CPP’s own investment policy documents, that it has been convinced by the socially responsible investing movement to advocate for change in three areas among the companies it owns: the environment and social impacts of oil, gas and mining companies; climate change; and on how much company executives get paid.

With this move, the $119 billion CPP fund single-handedly became one of the largest investment funds to be run according to socially responsible investment guidelines. According to John Smith, president of Great West Life, the investment company that manages our church’s own retirement plan, as of November 2007, almost 20 percent of all Canadian funds under management—or more than $500 billion in investments—are now run under socially responsible guidelines.

The social impact of oil, gas and mining companies also came up at the MC Saskatchewan delegate sessions during a workshop on the province’s uranium mining industry presented by Chris Buhler of Osler (Sask.) Mennonite Church. Saskatchewan is the world’s largest producer of uranium—about one-third of global uranium production comes from there.

Buhler described how Mennonite churches in the Warman, Sask., area and many in that community fought in the late 1970s and early 1980s to prevent a uranium refinery from being built there. They were successful, but the refinery was then built by Cameco in Blind River, Ont. “That creates a moral dilemma for us,” he said. “We fight these things and then find that they go somewhere else.”

Buhler outlined the many links between the nuclear power industry and the production of nuclear weapons, something that makes nuclear power more attractive to government spending than other alternative energy forms that aren’t so easily turned into weapons. It isn’t just nuclear bombs that are the issue, either. The U.S. is using some of the 635,000 tonnes of depleted uranium it has stockpiled to make bullets and shells for use in Iraq. This is a controversial use of the metal under international law, as rates of cancer and birth defects have gone up in Iraq in areas where depleted uranium was used.

Regarding investments, you may recall a column Ed Janzen wrote five months ago on discussions at Mennonite Church Canada on whether to include the nuclear industry in its ethical investment screen. I asked what the decision was, and learned that the pension group decided to continue excluding nuclear in its core fund pension policy.

Photography Contest

As part of our 10th anniversary year, the magazine is launching a photography contest. From now until June, amateur photographers in our readership are invited to submit their work. Photos can be entered in either of our two theme areas: caring for God’s creation or young adults in our churches (based on two of the Abbotsford 2007 assembly statements).

Photos can be submitted online (and entries viewed) at flickr.com/groups/cmcontest/pool, by e-mail to cmcontest@canadianmennonite.org or by postal mail. There is no entry fee. The winners for each theme will receive a framed copy of their photo and we will make a $100 donation to their church; all the top entries will be published either in print or online by us. Results will be announced at the national church assembly in July. More details are on our website. We think it will be a fun and creative event—enjoy!