The interest of a growing number in the Canadian labour movement in the investment and management of pension assets can probably be summed-up in a single word: jobs. At a time of high unemployment - and following a prolonged period of loss of jobs in traditional construction, manufacturing and resource industries, many of them permanently lost - labour is anxious about the capacity of the national economy to create new jobs or protect existing ones.

Canadian workers and their unions believe that there must be not only an increase in the quantity of jobs, but also an increase in quality. To maintain the living standards of working people and their families, new jobs must be predominantly full-time, value-added and well-paying. Moreover, existing, quality employment must be preserved.

This outlook is well-expressed in Vanishing Jobs (1995) in which economists Lars Osberg, Fred Wien and Jan Grude discuss the ramifications of shifts in the balance of job quantity and quality for the Canadian social fabric. This book asks: How can "good" jobs be sustained and what future sources will ultimately replace lost jobs with new ones of comparable value?^{Endnote 4} Of course, part of the answer lies in the advent of high-skill knowledge-based and technology-intensive production, and expansion in the labour force representation of knowledge and information workers. However, such developments are not as yet having a pervasive impact on the levels of jobless Canadians. Nor are they reaching into economically-disadvantaged communities and regions of the country where job losses have been most damaging.

Over the years, concern about the social consequences of cyclical and structural changes in the Canadian economy has led labour to examine more closely the connection between the financial system and productive investment decisions that are clearly job-creating or job-protecting. For instance, labour is more attuned to the heightened global mobility of capital resources and of its many possible implications. Some have argued that greater financial exposure to markets overseas may result in fewer such resources at home to support Canadian economic and social priorities.

Others have been active in defining a role for labour in mobilizing new capital sources. This is evident in the growing incidence in Canada of worker buyouts and other forms of worker ownership, often to keep traditional plant operations from shutting-down or to assist firms engaged in extensive restructuring to weather cost and competitive pressures in the short-term. Another manifestation is seen in the rise of labour- sponsored investment funds, beginning with the Fonds de solidarité des travailleurs du Québec (FTQ) in 1983 (documented by the CLMPC in 1995). In this case, fund sponsors in national unions and provincial labour federations have perceived the job maximization potential of new and developing SMEs.^{Endnote 5}

In these and other illustrations, Canadian unions and union centrals have embraced collective strategies for investment and capital formation that perform job-related mandates. Up until very recently, such strategic activity did not rely on the backing of employer-sponsored pension funds. In fact, some in labour have strongly opposed use of pension assets for this purpose, citing possible violations of fiduciary responsibility and other reasons.

With the passage of years, however, many in the Canadian labour movement have increasingly turned their attention to the investment and management of pension assets. Like their counterparts in business, many labour representatives take the view that short time horizons for pension investing will invariably create short-term growth and short-term jobs. Where individual Canadian unions have issued policy statements on such matters, they have urged that pension funds adopt a longer-term perspective of investing that accounts for the best interests of workers and their employment.

Some of the inspiration behind this new disposition comes from the spread of knowledge about practical asset-targeting models that have been shown to generate both market-grade returns, according to conventional averages and indices, and desired collateral benefits. In the United States, the phenomenon of "economically- targeted investments" (ETIs) has given birth to several programs for strategically pooling or otherwise directing a small, fixed portion of pension assets to meet certain economic or social investment goals. American labour is actively supportive of these, including those targeting affordable housing development, using unionized workers, or job-creating SMEs, in a community economic development context.