In 2004, The Varsity published a report revealing that, despite a decade of discontent from various parties over its investment of millions of dollars in tobacco stocks, the University of Toronto was not planning to quit anytime soon. Since the early nineties, U of T has listened to its internal advisors, who counseled it to put stock performance above all else.
Now a student group has said enough is enough, demanding that U of T sell its $10.5 million in tobacco stocks, an investment it says is irresponsible and unethical (see cover story). But will this pressure be enough to get us to butt out?
Certainly, U of T has an ethical investment policy, but it’s a policy that hasn’t been dusted off in a long time. It was used only once, in 1988, when the university divested from South Africa to protest apartheid. Since then, it has made robust investments in weapons manufacturers such as Raytheon and in companies who develop genetically engineered crops, as well as big tobacco. You’d hardly think ethics were much of a consideration when U of T sat down with its Wall Street Journal and chose those doozies.
Part of the problem is that U of T’s ethics policy doesn’t proactively review and reject stocks that are questionable before they’re chosen. Instead, the policy is entirely dependent on concerned members of the community speaking up and complaining about investments they find offensive.
Putting the burden on others does save some time and effort. After all, why police yourself when you can rely on laypeople to do it for you?
In 2000, however, blowing the whistle got a teensy bit harder when U of T decided to stop publishing its list of investments. It had just outsourced its asset management to a separate corporation, and argued that its list of investments was proprietary, competitive information that could not be shared with anyone, including its own students. Suddenly, it was “We’re not at liberty to share that information.” So much for transparency.
Thankfully, U of T started publishing this list again sometime in the last two years, seemingly of its own accord. (It can be found on the website of University of Toronto Asset Management, the company formed to look after its investments.) According to those records, its investment in tobacco is many times larger than it was in September 1999.
Campus group E-BUTT is now campaigning on the basis of these numbers to get U of T to divest from tobacco. In response, the university is doing the same thing it did in 1991-setting up an advisory committee to examine the issue. But don’t jump for joy just yet. Back then, its committee advised U of T to keep its stocks, even going so far as to recommend that the school review its own ethics policy to make sure it didn’t interfere with good business in the future.
In fact, the committee is already failing to deliver-although it assured E-BUTT it would come to a decision before the 2006 holidays, as of today it still has yet to present its findings. They seem to be wasting time by splitting hairs, considering whether dumping tobacco stocks would unfairly cut out tobacco products that aren’t harmful. But besides the illegal Cuban cigar trade, cigarettes are the only form of tobacco you’d want to invest in anyway, so that excuse makes no sense.
U of T needs to stop dithering and start listening to the members of its community. This is a campus that has spearheaded advances in the treatment of disease. It must stamp out the addiction to smoke stocks that has clouded its vision.
