BC Municipal Pension Plan AGM Toolkit

The BC Municipal Pension Plan’s (BCMPP) Annual General Meeting (AGM) will be held on October 17th, 2024. This is a rare opportunity for working and retired BCMPP members to directly ask how BCMPP leaders and the British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI), which manages the BCMPP, are protecting your retirement savings from climate-related financial risks as they continue to invest billions of dollars in fossil fuels. This toolkit provides you with information for registering for the meeting and submitting questions.

BC Municipal Pension Plan Annual General Meeting Information

• Thursday, October 17th from noon to 1pm.

• ONLINE - Register here.

To submit a question: 

• You can submit your questions in advance when you register for the AGM.

• You can email your questions to mpbt@pensionsbc.ca. 

• You can also ask questions live when attending the meeting.

For additional information about the BCMPP’s approach to the climate crisis, see Shift’s detailed analysis of the British Columbia Investment Management Corporation (BCI), the investment manager for the BC Municipal Pension Plan. 

Sample Climate Questions for the BCMPP AGM:

1. Given BCI's role as the investment manager for the BC Municipal Pension Plan, what strategies and processes are in place to ensure BCI's accountability towards the MPP’s climate targets? What happens if BCI fails to achieve the MPP’s climate targets?

2. Nine local governments in BC have voted to bring a class action lawsuit against global fossil fuel companies to recover a share of the costs of climate damages these companies have inflicted upon communities. Why is the BC Municipal Pension Plan investing in companies that BC municipalities are planning to sue?  

3. What percentage of the BC Municipal Pension Plan portfolio is covered by the Plan’s net zero commitment?

4. Many  of the BC Municipal Pension Plan's investments are held in pooled funds managed by BCI. Yet to the best of my knowledge, none of the other pension plans managed by BCI have committed to net zero emissions, nor has BCI. Are the MPP’s share of BCI’s pooled funds covered by the MPP’s net zero commitment? How can the MPP’s share of investments held in BCI’s pooled funds be aligned with its net zero by 2050 commitment when the same pooled assets in other BCI-managed pension plans are not covered by a net zero commitment?

5. The BC Municipal Pension Plan’s net zero goal says that BCI will “choose investments that meet our financial targets and align with our net-zero goal”. Can you please describe how the following assets in BCI’s Infrastructure and Renewable Resources portfolio are aligned with the Plan’s net zero goal? Open Grid Europe, Czech Gas Networks, Nova Transportadora do Sudeste SA, National Gas Transmission, Cleco Corporation, Connaught Oil & Gas, Corex Resources.

6. The BC Municipal Pension Plan and BCI say they are committed to remaining invested in oil and gas companies so that they can continue “engaging” these companies. Can you please provide examples of oil and gas producers in the MPP’s public equities portfolio that have credible, science-based 1.5℃-aligned climate plans that have been verified by third-party organizations such as Climate Action 100+, the Science-based Targets initiative, Transition Pathway Initiative, Net Zero Tracker, or other credible net zero investor coalitions?

7. In the opinion of BC Municipal Pension Plan leaders, what would an oil and gas company need to do to implement a credible, science-based, Paris-aligned climate transition plan?

8. The BC Municipal Pension Plan and BCI have used ExxonMobil and TC Energy as examples of effective climate-related “engagement”. How can the MPP and BCI make this claim when these companies are expanding oil and gas production, building new fossil fuel infrastructure, and lobbying aggressively to delay and obstruct government climate policies?

9. The BC government passed the Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples Act into law in November 2019, which mandates the government to bring provincial laws and public institutions in line with UNDRIP. Why doesn’t the BC Municipal Pension Plan have an Indigenous rights policy for its portfolio and investments?

10. The overwhelming majority of greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel companies comes in the form of scope 3 emissions. Why does the BC Municipal Pension Plan’s net-zero commitment focus on emissions intensity and ignore absolute emissions, including the scope 3 emissions associated with MPP’s portfolio?