There’s a little-known scandal that cost Canadians $500 million in CPP fund money, involving the rise and fall of a European long-term care provider called Orpea (now known as EMEIS). CPP Investments was the largest shareholder, and had employees on the board of directors, including the audit committee, yet still failed to detect any of the embezzlement, fraud, and elder abuse that was taking place throughout the company’s facilities.After French investigative journalist Victor Castanet published a book on the scandal titled “Les Fossoyeurs” (The Gravediggers), the company collapsed and was eventually bailed out by the French government, causing CPP Investments to sell at a near-total loss. To this day, media coverage of this scandal is nearly non-existent in Canada, and CPP Investments has not addressed what went wrong.Joining me on the Millennial Moron Podcast to discuss this case, as well as other Canadian pension funds and their private equity style activities internationally, is Jason Ward, principal analyst and founder of CICTAR, the Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research.Sources:CPPIB’s Orpea Debaclehttps://cictar.org/all-research/care/cppibReports on Australian port investments by Canadian pension fundshttps://cictar.org/all-research/dp-world-taxes-australiahttps://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/nov/01/dp-world-port-operator-australia-zero-taxCountry-by-country reportinghttps://www.nationalobserver.com/2025/09/19/opinion/corporate-canada-tax-transparency CICTARhttps://cictar.org/ Support MillennnialMoron:Patreon:https://www.patreon.com/MillennialMoron Buy Me a Coffeewww.buymeacoffee.com/millennialmoron

You’ve probably heard about Brookfield’s use of tax havens in countries like Bermuda and the Cayman Islands, especially since Mark Carney became Prime Minister of Canada. But what exactly are these tax havens being used for?

Livi Gerbase from the Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research (CICTAR) joins Millennial Moron to discuss ways that Brookfield (and other Canadian pension fund managers) is leveraging tax havens and tax-advantaged programs to privatize public utilities in Latin America, with case studies of Isagen in Colombia and BRK Ambiental in Brazil.

We discuss the decline in capital investment into infrastructure, increases in prices to consumers, stagnant wages for workers, and the massive increase in debt charges to these former public utilities - which are potentially being used as a profit-shifting scheme to avoid paying taxes to the local governments where these utilities are located.

Paper on Isagen in Colombia

https://cictar.org/all-research/isagen/eng

Paper on BRK Ambiental and Privatization of Water Services

https://cictar.org/all-research/brk-ambiental-en

Livi Gerbase on X

https://x.com/GerbaseLivi

CICTAR

https://cictar.org/

Pension Funds Fuel Land Grabs in Brazil (GRAIN):

https://grain.org/en/article/5575-pension-funds-fuel-land-grabs-in-brazil

Support MillennnialMoron:

Patreon:

https://www.patreon.com/MillennialMoron

Buy Me a Coffee

www.buymeacoffee.com/millennialmoron

Today, I’m joined by Richard Coffin, a.k.a. The Plain Bagel, to talk about policies proposed in the upcoming Canadian election, including income tax cuts, TFSAs, housing solutions and more!

Check out The Plain Bagel on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@ThePlainBagel

The Canadian Housing Crisis Explained:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Y0SY6OoKV8

Millennial Moron on YouTube:

https://www.youtube.com/@MillennialMoron