Month: July 2021

The military junta in Myanmar is one of the world’s worst regimes, murdering, arresting its citizens and committing war crimes including genocide with near total impunity. So you would think Canadian banks concerned about their public image and upholding both international law and human rights practices wouldn’t be so quick to support it.

But a new report out today from Banktrack uncovered that 19 international banks together have invested $65B in companies with ties to the military junta.

Both RBC and TD Bank are on the dubious list of having more than $1B invested.

 “The Myanmar military’s campaign of terror is enabled by the complicity of international companies that continue to do business with the illegal junta and its conglomerates. Banks have a responsibility to take action against investees that are complicit in the junta’s atrocities. Now Myanmar is being ravaged by Covid-19 and the military’s response has been to buy more arms, arrest doctors, raid clinics and steal supplies. The people of Myanmar need investors to act now to help stem the tragic loss of life.” — Yadanar Maung, spokesperson at Justice For Myanmar:

Learn more at the BankTrack website.

Many people still don’t know their banks are as bad for the climate as oil companies, so a group of activists in Toronto are organizing rides that stop at bank branches and leaving a little message behind. Here is a first hand account from today’s ride:

Today was a ride to protest bank funding of the fossil fuel industry that was organized by the Climate Pledge Collective and Toronto 350.org, noting that RBC, TD and Scotiabank are among the worst dozen banks worldwide that fund the fossil fuel industry. The group gathered at Christie Pits.

We are given our marching orders: we are to split up into smaller groups and each group would write messages in chalk outside one of the bank branches along Bloor between Christie and Yonge.

Here we are out front of RBC, the #1 fossil bank in Canada.

See more great photos and the full story here.

While Canada (and the world) suffers killer heatwaves and out of control wildfires, more and more of us are taking the message of action to Canada’s biggest investor in climate doom: RBC Bank.

The fact that more and more climate concerned Canadians are waking up to the connections between their banks and the climate crisis was covered well in this article by LeadNow Campaigner Cherry Tsoi in the National Observer.

In BC today a group of citizens held a peaceful prayer inside an RBC branch. The message was to stop RBC from backing the TransMountain tar sands pipeline, but also to get out of fossil fuels.

Peaceful prayer protest happening now @RBC against their funding of the fossil fuel industry including TMX. #stopTMX@QuitRbc @RbcRevealed @DivestCanada @macdivest @DivestHarvard @DivestStanford pic.twitter.com/9VX8HhudHV

— PPSTMX (@PPSTMX1) July 17, 2021

 

Yesterday Toronto based climate justice activists visited all 5 of Canada’s bank headquarters in downtown Toronto with a simple message: as Canada suffers killer heatwaves and damaging wildfires, it’s Canada’s banks that are making the disasters worse.

With flame signs and a huge banner saying “Dear Banks: Stop funding climate chaos”  they captured some inspiring photos below!

Bloomberg Green recently covered the growing campaign to pressure banks – including Canada’s top fossil bank RBC – to stop funding the controversial Line 3 tar sands pipeline.

Pressure has been building on stopping this $9B climate, water, and Indigenous-rights violating disaster of a project for months now. And since no one believes Enbridge will stop what they are doing, while they pressure the Biden Administration to kill it like they did Keystone XL, the movement is also following the money pipeline.

Take away the finance, and you take away the pipeline.

The article highlighted the variety of tactics activists are using, from “calendar jamming” senior executives (something groups in Canada are starting to do at RBC) to Indigenous-led direct actions and trainings to legal strategies.

Bloomberg also highlighted the incredible gall and hypocrisy of Enbridge positioning its finance mechanism for this project as “sustainable”, giving banks like RBC the ability to call funding a tar sands pipeline, part of its “green” or ESG investing portfolio. From the article:

For a company building fossil fuel infrastructure that will have a climate impact 4.5 times that of the country of Scotland to be having any type of sustainability conversations strikes me as greenwashing,” says Alec Connon of Stop the Money Pipeline.

“And any banks continuing to support this awful Line 3 tar sands project clearly need reminding that this pipeline violates any commitments they may have made on climate change.”

Indigenous leader Tara Houska added:

“I’d be curious to hear how a tar sands fossil fuel company is going to try to tell us, tell the public, that they are engaging in sustainable practices when they are responsible for the expansion of the fossil fuel industry,” Houska says. “I don’t think that they can slap a coat of paint on an entire body of work that involves destroying the planet.’”

We’re looking at you too, RBC.

Read the full article on the Bloomberg Green website.