For immediate publication
Montreal, October 29, 2026
Just Peace Advocates (JPA) has completed a study of investments made by Quebec’s Fonds de Solidarité FTQ which points to the latter’s investment in certain companies linked to Israel.
Fonds FTQ is the largest development capital network in Quebec and was established by the National Assembly of Quebec. The Fonds de solidarité FTQ was constituted on June 23, 1983 by an act of the Québec National Assembly, then headed by the government of René Lévesque. The initial capital came from workers affiliated to the FTQ that was complemented by the provincial and federal governments.
It is responsible for the savings of approximately 828,000 Quebecers and over 4,600 businesses. As per the JPA study, “The Fonds uses the savings and solidarity of Québecers as a vector to support the economy and maintain employment” according to its mission.” While a separate body from the Fedération des Travailleurs du Québec (FTQ), the Fonds de solidarité FTQ was created initially by the FTQ trade union with the goal of training workers, stimulating the Quebec economy and providing workers with a decent retirement fund. Investing in apartheid hardly seems to be an insistence of worker solidarity.
JPA goes on:
Despite its stated mission, of May 31, 2026, the Fonds FTQ had $446.197 million, or almost half-a-billion Canadian invested in companies complicit with Israeli war crimes and/or genocide.
In 2025, Fonds FTQ had over half-a-billion in complicit investments. This is the fourth year that we have reviewed Fonds FTQ investments, and to date they have not responded to reach out in this regard.
However, in the May 31, 2026 reporting it seems there were no holdings in companies listed on the UN database. In May 2025, Fonds FTQ had investments in several companies on the UN list including Bank Hapolim, Booking, and Motorola Solution. Fonds de solidarité FTQ has not confirmed if this was a conscious decision to divest from at least the companies on the UN list.
The Fonds de solidarité FTQ is to be praised for this divestment. By the same token, the Fonds FTQ needs to divest from the remaining Israel-linked companies!
With investment continuing in companies that are complicit in genocide and/or war crimes like L3 Harris, Palantir, RTX, HP, General Electric, Caterpillar, Amazon and others, the Fonds de solidarité FTQ still needs to clean up its act.
As per the JPA analysis: the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and Israel clearly articulated State requirements for implementing the 2024 ICJ AO.
“States must:
- abstain from entering into economic or trade dealings with Israel concerning the Occupied Palestinian Territory or parts thereof which may entrench its unlawful presence in the territory… (para 29)
- cease all financial, trade, investment, and economic relations with Israel that maintain the unlawful occupation or contribute to maintaining it… (para 29)
- examine private enterprises incorporated in the State and non-profit or non-governmental organizations registered in the State and their dealings with the State of Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory… (para 30)
- require a thorough due-diligence review of these entities and ensure that they are not engaging in any business, activity or financial support that maintains the unlawful occupation or contributes to maintaining it. If a State finds that such entities are engaging in activities that maintain the unlawful occupation, the State must take all reasonable measures to prevent the activities, such as revoking a corporation’s articles of incorporation or revoking a non-profit organization’s registration in that State…” (para 30)
International humanitarian law (IHL) is binding on all actors where activity is closely linked to armed conflict, including business enterprises, even if they don’t take part in active hostilities. Investment managers who make investments in war-crimes-complicit companies are either wilfully blind or recklessly indifferent to the effect of their investments regarding war crimes, crimes against humanity, and ‘plausible’ genocide.
As such, by virtue of investing in certain companies that are complicit in Israel’s genocide in Gaza which continues still, the Fonds de solidarité FTQ could conceivably be held accountable not only under international law but under Canadian law as well. International war crimes are indictable offences under the Criminal Code in Canada, based on the interplay of the Crimes Against Humanity and War Crimes Act, the Geneva Conventions Act, and the Interpretation Act. This applies not only to individuals but to all “legal persons” including “(a) a public body, body corporate, society, company, firm, partnership, trade union, or municipality, or, (b) an association of persons that is i) is created for a common purpose, ii) has an operational structure, and iii) holds itself out to the public as an association of persons.”
Below you will find a list of investments by the Fonds de solidarité FTQ provided by Just Peace Advocates. Note in particular the following: L3 Harris, Palantir, RTX, HP, General Electric, Caterpillar, Amazon.
The United Nations OHCHR database (updated) of “all business enterprises involved in the activities detailed in paragraph 96 of the report of the independent international fact-finding mission to investigate the implications of the Israeli settlements on the civil, political, economic, social and cultural rights of the Palestinian people throughout the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem” provides an extensive list of companies involved in supporting Israel both financially and in terms of military aid.
As stated by Pope Leo XIV: “What is happening in Ukraine, in Gaza and the Palestinian territories, in Lebanon, and in Iran illustrates the inhuman evolution of the relationship between war and new technologies in a spiral of annihilation . . . education and research must move instead in the opposite direction that values life “the lives of peoples who cry out for peace and justice!”
Trade unionism was not built through the efforts and sacrifices of workers over the centuries with the aim of crushing the poor, nor of supporting apartheid!
- Given the fact that the Fonds de solidarité FTQ has not divested from all companies in its investment portfolio that have dealings with Israel,it is incumbent upon the Fonds FTQ to divest from all Israel-linked companies. Quebecers pensions should not be used to invest in companies linked to Israel’s apartheid state. PAJU asks the Fonds de solidarité FTQ to divest from these same companies and to render that divestment public.
- There is no Statute of Limitations regarding War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity
- https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-non-applicability-statutory-limitations-war-crimes
Contact: info @paju.org
