For Immediate Release
Coalition du Québec URGENCE Palestine
Just Peace Advocates
La Caisse’s $26 billion in investments in 2025
Quebecers’ savings continue to fund crimes in Palestine
Tiohtià:ke/Mooniyang/Montréal, Thursday, May 7, 2026 – The Coalition du Québec URGENCE Palestine and Just Peace Advocates (JPA) are releasing their preliminary analysis of the 2025 annual report published yesterday by the Caisse de dépôt et placement du Québec (La Caisse). The analysis reveals that as of December 31, 2025, Quebecers’ savings had invested $25.6 billion in 80 companies* complicit in genocide, occupation, colonization, and rights violation of the Palestinian people, representing 4.9% of its total assets. After being singled out in the UN report, “From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide”, in June 2025, La Caisse continues to be largely complicit. The Coalition and JPA demand immediate action regarding these investments.
*These companies appear on one or more of the six (6) recognized lists that provide information on companies engaged in economic activities linked to crimes committed by Israel in Palestine: (1) United Nations database on companies engaged in certain Israeli settlement activities in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, updated September 26, 2025; (2) AFSC Investigate, including Companies Profiting from the Gaza Genocide; (3) Canada: Stop Arming Israel by World Beyond War; (4) Who Profits Database of Complicit Companies; (5) Don’t Buy Into Occupation; (6) Campaign Against Arms Trade.
Complicit investments in L3Harris and Caterpillar
As of December 31, 2025, La Caisse had invested $153.7 million in L3Harris Technologies, nearly seven (7) times more than the previous year. L3Harris manufactures components that are integrated into many of the Israeli military’s weapons systems, including air-to-ground bombs and its aircraft, tanks, and warships. These weapons have been used in attacks on densely populated civilian areas, killing thousands in Gaza and Lebanon. L3Harris has several branches in Canada, including one in Mirabel.
La Caisse is also investing $377 million in Caterpillar. This company has been the target of campaigns by Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch for its involvement in the destruction of thousands of homes and the construction of illegal settlements in occupied Palestine. More recently, Caterpillar’s D-9 armored bulldozers were used to raze entire neighborhoods and cities during Israel’s genocidal assault on Gaza.
WSP is reported to have left Israel
La Caisse is the largest shareholder in WSP, a Quebec-based multinational engineering consulting firm, with an investment of $4.6 billion in 2025. For many years, WSP has been complicit in the crimes involved in maintaining and expanding illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. Until recently, it directly oversaw the construction of the Jerusalem Light Rail extension to illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem.
Last September, the Israeli business magazine Globes reported that WSP was leaving Israel. Then, in December, WSP’s Israeli subsidiary changed its name from “WSP Consulting Engineers Israel LTD” to “PBIL Consulting Engineers LTD,” or simply “PB Israel.” These changes are obviously not unrelated to the local and international mobilization targeting WSP and La Caisse for years. However, some questions remain (see Pivot article, in French, February 24, 2026). The Coalition and JPA demand that WSP and La Caisse demonstrate complete transparency toward Quebecers regarding the full cessation of all activities that violates the provisions of international law in Palestine. We also call on WSP to take action regarding human rights violations committed in connection with its involvement in projects in Occupied Palestine, as required by its human rights policy.
Widespread Support for the Divestment Campaign
Since the launch of the “Caisse Out of Crimes in Palestine” campaign on March 17, 2025, more than 20 local and national labor organizations, including the CSN (Confédération des syndicats nationaux) and the FAE (Fédération autonome de l’enseignement), have adopted resolutions calling on La Caisse to divest from complicit companies, in solidarity with the Palestinian people’s struggle for liberation. This mobilization continues and is gaining momentum. Municipalities have also joined the movement, including those of Price, Saint-Cuthbert, Sainte-Angèle-de-Mérici, Saint-Valérien, and Saint-Germain-de-Kamouraska.
QUOTES
“International law prohibits the provision of weapons, machinery, equipment, materials, products, and services of any kind that contribute to the genocide in Gaza, the establishment, maintenance, or expansion of Israeli settlements, the Israeli apartheid regime, and the military occupation of Palestine. “When will La Caisse take seriously the criminal activities of the companies in which it invests our money?” says Raymond Legault, spokesperson for the Quebec Coalition URGENCE Palestine.
“What we’re seeing with WSP’s sale of its Israeli subsidiary is that the pressure is working. Since 2024, the pressure on the Caisse has only been mounting, and we will continue our actions until Quebecers’ savings sever all ties with the occupation and genocide in Palestine,” says Benoît Allard, spokesperson for Divest for Palestine, an activist collective that organized an ecampment at Square Victoria in Montreal in 2024 to demand that La Caisse divest.
“As Israel continues to escalate its genocidal violence across occupied Palestine, the occupied Syrian Golan, and Lebanon, La Caisse continues to fund its crimes. It is (past) time to divest from companies supporting Israel’s crimes. While La Caisse likes to argue they are “at arms length” from these complicit companies’ actual activities, they can and must be held accountable for their investments. It is not a moral plea but a legal demand,” says Becca Steckle, spokesperson for Just Peace Advocates
CAMPAIGN DEMANDS
- We demand that La Caisse take immediate steps to cut all ties with companies complicit in human rights violations in Palestine. Specifically, this means:
- requiring all targeted companies to cease all activities linked to human rights violations in Palestine;
- in the event of refusal, withdrawing all La Caisse investments from these companies.
- We also demand that La Caisse establish a transparent oversight process to ensure that none of its current or future investments are linked to violations of human rights and international law. The implementation of such a process must be carried out in consultation with civil society.
TIMELINE
Complete timeline
April 30, 2025. Analysis of La Caisse’s 2024 annual report by the Coalition and Just Peace Advocates : $27.4 billion in 76 companies complicit in genocide and occupation in Palestine.
June 30, 2025. Report, “From an economy of occupation to an economy of genocide,” Human Rights Council, 57th session, A/HRC/59/23, La Caisse referred to in section 77.
July 15, 2025. Open Letter from 125 teachers, union members, students, and citizens, Sortez nos caisses de retraite de « l’économie du génocide » (La Presse, In French).
July 15, 2025. Open Letter to Quebecers from Charles Émond, President and CEO of La Caisse, Nous nous préoccupons de la crise humanitaire en Palestine (La Presse, In French).
July 16, 2025. Open Letter from 15 Experts in International Law, Palestine: pourquoi l’ONU a raison et la CDPQ a tort (Le Soleil, In French).
May 7, 2026. Release of the Coalition and JPA’s preliminary analysis of La Caisse’s 2025 annual report (May 6, 2025).
May 12, 2026. Charles Émond answers questions from the opposition – Review of the 2026-2027 budget appropriations for the Ministry of Finance, Finance, La Caisse.
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About the Coalition
The Coalition du Québec URGENCE Palestine was formed in February 2024 to make visible the outrage of Quebec civil society over the genocide perpetrated by Israel in Gaza and to support the Palestinian struggle against occupation, colonization, and dispossession. It brings together 54 unions, community, and citizen groups from across Quebec.
www.urgencepalestine.quebec
About Just Peace Advocates
A Canadian based independent human rights organization promoting Just Peace/Paix Juste through the rule of law and respect for human rights in Canada and around the world for the Palestinian and Kashmiri peoples and those that stand in solidarity.
www.justpeaceadvocates.ca
For information and interviews
email contact: info@justpeaceadvocates.ca
Campaign website
https://cdpq-palestine.info/index.en.html
