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Canada’s five biggest banks are financing the climate crisis. RBC, TD, Scotiabank, CIBC and BMO are funneling billions of dollars into fossil fuel expansion, funding projects that will lead to worse emissions and more climate chaos. RBC, the worst of the big 5, was the number one funder of fossil fuel projects in the world in 2022. Many of these projects violate Indigenous rights and sovereignty, like the Coastal Gaslink Pipeline which violates sovereign Wet’suwet’en territory without consent from hereditary leadership.
We have the power to stop them. We’ve already won big on three Canadian campuses, with major wins against RBC and fossil fuel funding banks at the University of Toronto, the University of Ottawa, and York University. Now, it’s spreading country-wide.
Sign our petition to kick #BanksOffCampus until they stop funding fossil fuel companies and violating Indigenous sovereignty.
Add your name to join our campaign to kick fossil fuel banks off our campus!
Dear student leaders across so-called Canada,
We, the undersigned students, call on you to stand up to the Big 5 banks’ climate destruction by ending any relationships between them and your student union.
This past summer, we have seen record-breaking heat waves, wildfires and weather events brought on by the increasingly urgent climate crisis. Meanwhile, Canada’s big five banks continue to finance billions of dollars of fossil fuel expansion. Many of these projects violate Indigenous rights and sovereignty, including the Coastal Gaslink pipeline and the Trans Mountain Expansion.
Allowing banks to occupy space on campus means being complicit in their greenwashing efforts- the banks attempts to co-opt students’ support and disguise themselves as environmentally responsible. We refuse to accept false solutions offered to us by the rich and powerful.
We will not be complicit in the destruction of land, water and air, and violence against Indigenous lands and peoples. We call on you as our student leadership to take a principled stance against the big banks, and join the calls for #RBCoffCampus and #BanksoffCampus.
We call on YOUR STUDENT UNION to:
1. Sign onto the national student union statement calling on the Big 5 Banks to divest from fossil fuels
2. End any contracts with RBC that allows them to have an RBC On Campus Branch. If no branch exists, publicly and formally commit to not establishing a branch and to advocating against the university from entering into a contract for such a branch.
3. End banking relationships with RBC or any of Canada’s big five banks (RBC, Scotiabank, CIBC, TD, and Bank of Montreal), which all invest massively in fossil fuels, and move to a financial institution that is rooted in a local community and invests in people, like a credit union.
4. Stop allowing RBC or any of Canada’s big five banks from hosting, co-hosting or sponsoring student union events.
