A revelation that the B.C. government pension funds are investing in Kinder Morgan is being called hypocritical by critics.
The pension plan for public servants owns stock in the American energy infrastructure company.
BC Investment Management Corporation says the investment is part of a group of funds it put money into. The company managing the pension funds says Kinder Morgan wasn't actively chosen, but that its strategy is to get the best return for its clients.
"Investments are made solely for index replication and are aligned with the company's weighting within the respective indices," BCI said in a statement to CTV News.
"BCI has held Kinder Morgan since 2011 after it was first added to the MSCI World Index and Kinder Morgan Canada after it was added to the S&P/TSX Composite Index in December 2017."
The indexing or grouping of funds means many people may have stakes in Kinder Morgan or other oil companies and not know it.
But optically, it doesn't look good for the NDP, especially with the controversy around Kinder Morgan's Trans Mountain pipeline expansion. The project put B.C. at odds with the company itself, as well as the federal and Alberta governments.
"This is crass hypocrisy," the Canadian Taxpayers Federation's Kris Sims said Tuesday.
"Lo and behold, oil and gas are so fundamental to our economic prosperity that government pensions rely on them."
And the CTF pointed out that if the funds don't perform well, B.C. residents would be on the hook to make up the difference.
Premier John Horgan admitted he understands why the investment raises eyebrows.
"Oftentimes this looks bizarre to the public… but it would be worse having politicians implementing changes to investments that are going to affect the pensions of hundreds of thousands of British Columbians," he said.
Meanwhile, the government is preparing to head to court to ask whether legislative amendments will allow it to control the flow of bitumen like the pipeline will carry across its border.
With a report from CTV Vancouver's Bhinder Sajan
