King’s has invested $2.76 million in entities they say are unethical. Why won’t they divest?

Two years ago, the University of King’s College became the first university in Halifax to divest from weapons manufacturers. Today, the school owns $34,000 of stock in Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest weapons manufacturer.
It’s part of $2.76 million in investments from the university into unethical entities, including fossil fuel extractors, tobacco companies, weapons manufacturers and aerospace and defence companies.
These investments account for about five per cent of King’s total investment fund, according to a March report. While the unethical investments accounted for the same percentage of holdings in 2024, King’s has invested $666,000 more in these companies now than two years ago.
The investments violate King’s responsible investment policy, and students are voicing their frustration with the lack of divestment.
The King’s Students’ Union has outlined divestment as one of its “key concerns,” according to Iman Mannathukkaren, the union’s external vice-president.
“It’s something we students care about a lot,” she says. “It’s quite disappointing that administration is failing to listen to student voices on this key issue.”
The university’s endowment fund, which is primarily funded through donations, is made up of commingled funds — pools of assets — managed by TD Asset Management at the discretion of King’s investment committee.
This means King’s doesn’t pick the individual stocks they invest in, and that “divesting from a single company generally requires selling the entire fund,” read a memo from the university released alongside its holdings report on March 31.
King’s says this puts their goal of full divestment at odds with their obligation to turn a profit on investments, with the university prioritizing the latter.
Tim Vine, who became the university’s president in July, says he’s open to further divestment, but universities have to walk on a “tightrope” between representing the values of students and the institution’s financial obligations and needs.
“We can have a really interesting discussion about whether five per cent exposure is contained enough to walk that tightrope or whether we need to go further,” says Vine. “My feeling for now is that it’s likely a good number. If we want to [divest] further, I’m not opposed to that conversation.”
“If [divestment] is the sense of the overall King’s community, then we’ve got work to do,” he says.
Mannathukkaren says any investment in these entities sends a “harmful message” to the university’s community.
King’s last updated their statement of investment policy and goals in 2022 to ensure the university’s endowment fund has guidelines in place to help build and maintain its equity.
The policy states that the university will play an active role in ensuring its managers divest entirely from entities that clearly do not align with the university’s ethical principles and values.
Additionally, entities focused on resource extraction such as oil, gas, coal and mining have to be evaluated for positive environmental, social and governance principles before investing in them.
Stuart Pattillo, the chair of the investment committee, said King’s endowment fund is “too small” for it to invest in individual entities, as opposed to pooled assets, and continue to grow the endowment fund’s earnings, in a July 25 letter addressed to former university president Bill Lahey.
Pattillo did not respond to the Dalhousie Gazette’s request for comment before publication.
Vine has yet to speak with the university’s investment committee but expects to later this fall. He doesn’t anticipate any changes being made to the current responsible investment policy.
“My bias would be towards making our actual behaviour reflective of the policy rather than changing the policy to reflect our actual behaviour,” says Vine.
SUB: Why are students fighting for divestment?
Karen Rodman is the executive director for Just Peace Advocates, a Canadian human rights organization that advocates for Palestinian rights. The organization released a report in June in which they examined Canadian universities’ direct or indirect support of Israel, which found King’s had nearly $1.8 million of investments complicit in the genocide of Palestinians.
She said the profits from university investments are typically used for scholarships, bursaries, or other student-affiliated programs.
“These profits, when coming from companies participating in criminal activity, are blood money,” said Rodman in an email to the Gazette. “Investments directly affect students.”
Isabelle Reynolds graduated from King’s as valedictorian in 2020. She was one of 344 King’s alumni who signed an open letter to King’s administration titled Alumni for Palestine.
The letter stated that signees would withhold donations to the university until investment assets were publicly disclosed, divestment from companies playing a role in the genocide in Gaza and the university released a statement calling for a ceasefire in Gaza. The latter two demands have not been met.
Reynolds is interested to hear from King’s about the exact financial damages it says come from divesting.
“If they’re really making this representation that [divestment] is possible, I would want to see their work on that,” she says. “If the asset manager is not able or willing to follow the instructions of its client, maybe King’s should get a different asset manager.”
She says that Vine should help the investment committee find a different path.
“Given that he has a financial background, it shouldn’t be that hard for him to put the different options before the board,” says Reynolds. “President Vine should understand that the [responsible investment policy] reflects the expectations of the King’s community.”
SUB: What is King’s investing in?
Georgia Gilmore is in her fourth year at King’s and is double majoring in law, justice and society along with gender and women’s studies. She is also the King’s student representative for Nova Scotia Student Strike, a grassroots student-led organization that has advocated for universities in the province to divest from unethical entities.
Gilmore has analyzed the university’s 2025 and 2026 portfolio holdings reports and located unethical entities that violate the university’s responsible investment policy.
Other considerable investments include over $360,000 in Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. and over $170,000 in Inter Pipeline Ltd., leading oil and gas extractors in North America.
“It’s contrary to King’s as an institution,” says Gilmore. “It feels like the university is trying to make as much profit without regard to what its values are.”
Nova Scotia Student Strike plans to hold a two-week strike in March, following the province’s first-ever student strike last March. University divestment remains one of their main goals.
“King’s needs to understand and recognize that they are losing trust [with students],” says Mannathukkaren. “The path that we are currently on is not working.”