Invested in Crisis

Public Sector Pensions Against the Future

Tom Fraser

• Publisher: Between the Lines
• Year: 2025
• eBook ISBN: 9781771136709
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Government & Business
• Index: Politics & International Relations

All workers deserve access to a safe and secure retirement. But neoliberal governments set up a dynamic where the retirement of some is predicated upon the exploitation of many. In the late-1980s, Ontario's government, financial sector, and labour movement collaborated on a major restructuring of the province's public sector pensions. The result? The unlocking of a vault containing billions of dollars, suddenly open to be privately invested in capital markets. All this occurred as Ontario's manufacturing economy got smaller, its care economy got bigger, and its labour movement got weaker. 

In Invested in Crisis, Tom Fraser traces the rise of the province's mega-pension-funds by melding history, geography, and political economy to situate this growth in the context of Ontario's deindustrialization, the rise of finance, and the global politics of the built environment. Fraser delves deep into the sordid stories of the public sector pension fund investment world: the massive real estate projects, the infrastructure privatization debacles, how unions fight back, and what needs to be done so we can all save for a better future.

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction: Mapping the Pension Fund Landscape
• One: Making a Public-Private-Public Welfare State
• Two: Pensions, Property, and Poverty
• Three: Local Labour, Global Infrastructure
• Conclusion: Building a Just City, Building a Just Retirement
• Notes
• Index