Voyageur 72
A Canadian Is About to Fly Around the Moon, and Your Canadian Bank Is Helping Fund ICE.
News for residents of the “11th province”: Canadians abroad.
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A Canadian Is About to Fly Around the Moon
Col. Jeremy Hansen lifts off from Kennedy Space Center on Wednesday evening, becoming the first Canadian - and the first non-American (we checked) - to travel beyond Earth's orbit.
Hansen, a former CF-18 pilot from London, Ontario, will spend 10 days aboard NASA's Orion spacecraft with three American crewmates on a loop around the Moon and back. It's the first crewed lunar flight since Apollo 17 in 1972. The launch window opens April 1 and runs through April 6.
Canada earned the seat by building Canadarm3, the robotic arm for NASA's Lunar Gateway station. It’s the same playbook that was used in 1984, when the original Canadarm got Marc Garneau his ticket onto the shuttle.
Hansen was picked from more than 5,000 applicants to join the Canadian Space Agency in 2009. Before that, he flew CF-18s at Cold Lake, Alberta.
Read more: Global News / NASA
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A photo from the old country:
Your Canadian Bank Is Helping Fund ICE
Canada's Big Five banks have put more than US$23 billion into companies that are holding ICE contracts since 2020, according to advocacy group Stand.earth.
TD, RBC, Scotiabank, CIBC, and BMO - along with Desjardins - also have about US$9.8 billion worth of investments in the same firms. The list includes data analytics giant Palantir, private prison operators CoreCivic and GeoGroup, and defence contractors General Dynamics and L3Harris.
Public pensions are in the thick of it too. The Canada Pension Plan has US$1.6 billion parked in these companies - roughly the same as California's public pension fund, which is responsible for a population ten times the size. B.C. Investment Management and the Caisse de depot also hold positions.
Finance Minister Champagne's office said the institutions make their own investment decisions. The banks and pension funds didn't comment. Cause for concern, or nbd? You decide.
Read more: The Globe and Mail / BNN Bloomberg