Knock knock, who’s there? Climate villain of the year.
On Thursday, climate activists from the University of Toronto, Banking on a Better Future, Climate Justice TO, and Stand.Earth participated in a demonstration to disrupt the Ivey Business School’s presentation to RBC CEO Dave McKay with the ‘Business Leader of the Year Award’
Demonstrators presented McKay with an award of their own, the highly disdained ‘Climate Villain of the Year Award,’ which the RBC executive won hands down.
The Royal Bank of Canada has profited from climate chaos to the tune of more than $263 billion dollars in fossil fuel investment, including the Coastal GasLink pipeline project that is currently being constructed on the unceeded sacred Indigenous territory of the Wet’suwet’en people.
On October 27, the Toronto Star reported, “Royal Bank’s emissions-intensity metric measures the amount of carbon emitted by the companies relative to their total production. Using that yardstick lets the Toronto-based company increase lending to high-emitting sectors and lets companies in its portfolio emit more total carbon through increased production, as long as their operations are becoming more efficient.” In other words, profit trumps the environment.
RBC is currently under investigation by the Canadian Competition Bureau for alleged greenwashing and misleading potential investors. McKay was recently quoted in the Toronto Star stating that ‘Canada’s leaders need to step up on climate change,’ while simultaneously directly facilitating the funding of wide-scale ecological genocide on sovereign Indigenous territory.
Socialist Action Canada has stood, and will continue to stand in unrelenting support of the Wet’suwet’en people’s right to self-determination, and calls for an immediate end to the Coastal GasLink pipeline project.
Socialist Action Canada adamantly believes that there can be no reconciliation between the Canadian state and the Indigenous people of Turtle Island without restitution. This includes Land Back, a seizure of the major resource corporations (such as CGL), and a return of those resources to the Indigenous people of the common lands.
While the Wet’suwet’en resistance managed to delay the drilling of the Wedzin Kwa river for nearly two years, the operation has gone on as planned, with drilling having started on the sacred Yintah land earlier last month.
The Wet’suwet’en hereditary chiefs have called on their allies to mobilize en masse, starting on November 5th. Actions are currently being planned for demonstrations in Toronto, if you would like to be a part of this event, please contact us or sign-up for email alerts for further details to come.
Along with featured speakers from both Banking on a Better Future, and Climate Justice TO; Wet’suwet’en Land Defender and organizer, Eve Saint, also spoke, along with the revolutionary musical stylings of Polaris Prize nominated hip hop artist, Lee Reed, who performed during the demonstration.
