Motion

BE IT RESOLVED that, consistent with (a) UPP’s current exclusion of direct and indirect investments in entities producing the kinds of weapons prohibited by treaties to which Canada is party, in all entities domiciled in Russia, and in entities causing or contributing to adverse social impacts that are sufficiently egregious (see  Investment Exclusion, p. 8); and (b) UPP’s statement that “breaches of international law have no place in UPP’s portfolio”, QUFA call on the UPP to:

 

1. Announce and implement an immediate screen on any new investments in, and a rapid timeline for complete divestment from, all direct and indirect holdings in entities that manufacture or distribute arms, ammunition, implements or munitions of war, where there are reasonable grounds to believe that they may be used to a) maintain Israel’s unlawful presence in or in any part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory; or b) support unlawful occupations or violations of human rights in other contexts;

2. Announce and implement an immediate screen on any new investments in, and a rapid timeline for complete divestment from, all direct and indirect holdings in activities for which there are reasonable grounds to believe that they may be used to a) maintain Israel’s unlawful presence in or in any part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory–this includes Israel Bonds and other similar instruments that provide financial support to any arm of the State of Israel, including the Israeli military; or b) support unlawful occupations or violations of human rights in other contexts; 

3. Incorporate these divestment commitments into its Investment Exclusion policy;

 

And it is further RESOLVED that

 

1. QUFA Executive convey the results of this motion to the UPP and appoint an ad hoc committee to advocate for these resolutions within the UPP and to provide regular updates to Council and Executive on the status of its implementation.

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As of December 10, the following clauses have been removed from the motion in order to ensure the meeting proceeds in a timely manner, but remain crucial to understanding the context for the motion: 

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WHEREAS in the current climate of genocide, illegal occupations, and other breaches of international law in Palestine, Sudan, Myanmar, and other lands and countries, academic workers have a moral and pedagogical responsibility to provide an ethical environment for learning and to ensure that we do not benefit from such violations; 

 

WHEREAS the University Pension Plan (UPP) has been intentionally designed to give plan members an equal voice in plan management, and provide more member control over the direction and outcomes of their pensions;

 

WHEREAS the UPP has articulated its “responsibility to promote the health of capital markets and the financial, social, and environmental systems on which capital markets rely” as a core investment belief;

 

WHEREAS the UPP has operationalized that belief in part through its Responsible Investment and Investment Exclusion policies, the latter of which currently excludes direct and indirect investments in entities producing the kinds of weapons prohibited by treaties to which Canada is party, and in entities causing or contributing to adverse social impacts that are sufficiently egregious;

 

WHEREAS the UPP voluntarily excluded all direct and indirect investments in entities domiciled in Russia within three weeks of that country’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022, stating that “breaches of international law have no place in UPP’s portfolio”;

 

WHEREAS UPP members were promised the benefits of a jointly sponsored pension plan in terms of greater member input and transparency over joining the UPP;

 

WHEREAS QUFA has exercised this stewardship obligation in part by passing a similar resolution in February 2024 calling on the UPP to implement an immediate screen on any new investments in oil and gas and to announce a rapid timeline for complete divestment from the oil and gas industry so as to align the UPP with the obligations laid out in Investing to Address Climate Change: A Charter for Canadian Universities;

 

WHEREAS multiple respected organizations and expert bodies, after extensive investigations using rigorous methods, have concluded that Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide. These include, most notably, the United Nations Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel, which, in its September 2025 report, following a two-year investigation, found that Israel’s unlawful conduct was underpinned by both illegal intent:

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[T]he Commission concludes that the Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces have had and continue to have the genocidal intent to destroy, in whole or in part, the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. (paragraph 254, p. 71)

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and illegal acts:

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Israeli authorities and Israeli security forces committed four of the five genocidal acts defined by the 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, namely killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, deliberately inflicting conditions of life calculated to bring about the destruction of the Palestinians in whole or in part, and imposing measures intended to prevent births. (“Israel has Committed Genocide.”) 

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Other organizations have reached similar conclusions. [1]

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WHEREAS the Gaza case illustrates the devastation that weapons of war can inflict, with independent scientific research confirming and in some cases exceeding the Ministry of Health’s reported death tolls. A peer-reviewed study published in The Lancet (July 2024), conducted by researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, Yale University, and others, used capture-recapture statistical analysis and estimated 64,260 deaths in Gaza by the end of June 2024—about 40% higher than the official Ministry of Health count—with 59% of the dead being women, children, or the elderly; 

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WHEREAS Médecins Sans Frontières (Doctors Without Borders), through its research arm Epicentre, conducted a retrospective mortality survey of 2,523 MSF staff and family members between October 2023 and March 2025, finding that the mortality rate was five times higher overall compared to pre-war levels, ten times higher for children under five, and six times higher for newborns—findings consistent with the Ministry of Health data;

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WHEREAS a recent independent mortality survey (Nature, January 2025) conducted by the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research, in collaboration with international researchers, estimated that almost 84,000 people had died in Gaza between October 2023 and early January 2025. More than half of those killed were women, children, or the elderly. These findings, derived from representative household surveys across Gaza, further confirm that the official tolls are reliable and may in fact understate the true scale of the devastation [2];

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WHEREAS Canada, which officially recognized the State of Palestine on September 21, 2025, recognition that places the State of Palestine under the guarantees of Article 2 of the United Nations Charter, has ratified the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide and is party to the 1998 Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court [ICC], is bound not only to respect the ICC’s 21 November 2024 arrest warrants for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former defense minister Yoav Gallant for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity as well as the decisions of the International Court of Justice, including the legal consequences of the 26 January 2024 finding that Israel is plausibly committing genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip, thereby giving rise to a duty of all States party to the Genocide Convention – including Canada – to prevent genocide, and the 19 July 2024 opinion affirming Israel’s continued presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory to be unlawful and determining that all States – including Canada – are under an obligation not to recognize as legal the situation arising from Israel’s unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s continued unlawful presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory [3].

 

AND WHEREAS other UPP Plan Members – including the University of Toronto Faculty Association, the Trent University Faculty Association, and the United Steel Workers Local 1998 and the Canadian Union of Public Employees Locals 1230 and 3902 at the University of Toronto – have passed similar resolutions to those proposed below;

 

NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that, consistent with (a) UPP’s current exclusion of direct and indirect investments in entities producing the kinds of weapons prohibited by treaties to which Canada is party, in all entities domiciled in Russia, and in entities causing or contributing to adverse social impacts that are sufficiently egregious (see Investment Exclusion, p. 8); and (b) UPP’s statement that “breaches of international law have no place in UPP’s portfolio”, QUFA call on the UPP to:

 

1. Announce and implement an immediate screen on any new investments in, and a rapid timeline for complete divestment from, all direct and indirect holdings in entities that manufacture or distribute arms, ammunition, implements or munitions of war, where there are reasonable grounds to believe that they may be used to a) maintain Israel’s unlawful presence in or in any part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory; or b) support unlawful occupations or violations of human rights in other contexts;

2. Announce and implement an immediate screen on any new investments in, and a rapid timeline for complete divestment from, all direct and indirect holdings in activities for which there are reasonable grounds to believe that they may be used to a) maintain Israel’s unlawful presence in or in any part of the Occupied Palestinian Territory–this includes Israel Bonds and other similar instruments that provide financial support to any arm of the State of Israel, including the Israeli military; or b) support unlawful occupations or violations of human rights in other contexts; 

3. Incorporate these divestment commitments into its Investment Exclusion policy;​
   
   And it is further RESOLVED that QUFA
    

4. QUFA Executive convey the results of this motion to the UPP, and appoint an ad hoc committee to advocate for these resolutions within the UPP and provide regular updates to Council and Executive on the status of its implementation.