Canada’s Largest Pension Fund Finances CO Front Range Drilling

BOULDER, CO – By Daniel Glick, The Story Group for The Colorado Independent. It’s a familiar story: A deep-pocketed country develops oil fields in a heavily indebted nation with lax environmental regulations. The locals object, claiming that oil and gas extraction degrades their land, air, water and quality of life. Protests mount, and locals appeal to elected officials, who appear powerless to intervene. The foreign country tries to influence local elections. Complaints about spills and leaks pour in. Lawsuits fly. There are rumblings that locals may resort to civil disobedience if the rich foreigners keep spoiling their resources.

This scenario has played out around the world — in Nigeria, Ecuador, Indonesia and elsewhere. In what economists call the “resource curse,” countries with minerals or oil are vulnerable to exploitation by foreign powers and end up with sullied land, poisoned waters and dirty air.

But in a new twist to an old narrative, the foreign interloper in this story is Canada, and the area being despoiled is the United States. Specifically, Boulder County, Colorado.

The deal

In October 2015, the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board (CPPIB) announced a $900 million deal to purchase all of the oil and gas assets in the Denver-Julesburg (D-J) Basin owned by Encana, the U.S. subsidiary of a Canadian energy company with the same name that at that point was one of the largest producers in Colorado.

The Investment Board is a quasi-governmental, $368 billion behemoth that invests payroll withholding taxes from Canada’s workers on behalf of 20 million contributors and beneficiaries, and pays benefits much like the U.S. Social Security system does. Its portfolio is vast and includes renewable energy projects, real estate, business ventures around the world, as well as fossil fuel production and pipelines.

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