Powerful companies like RBC are held accountable to their shareholders once a year at a legally required Annual General Meeting (AGM). At these meetings, the CEO and other senior executives field questions from shareholders, and often have to respond to resolutions filed attempting to shift the company’s policy on various issues.
At last year’s AGM in Toronto, RBC executives were met with a powerful wave of resistance – so much so that they cancelled the in-person meeting the night before! This didn’t stop the Indigenous leaders and others who had travelled there to demand RBC and all Canadian banks respect Free, Prior, and Informed Consent (FPIC), stop financing the Coastal Gas Link pipeline, and phase out the financing of fossil fuel projects.
This year RBC decided to run to Saskatoon instead, perhaps thinking there would be a more oil-friendly local crowd. But climate justice matters to many people in the Prairies, and RBC can’t hide from accountability for the damage it is causing communities everywhere.
Here are some important upcoming events to help you get involved in pressuring RBC this spring
March 29 (and ongoing): RBC phone jam
April 3: 7pm EST RBC Burn Book Party: virtual call to action, leave bad google reviews for RBC and join in a phone zap to jam up RBC’s press lines in advance of the AGM.
April 4: 6:30 CT Public panel open to all – Who is financing the destruction of our land?
Wonderhub Performance Hall (950 Spadina Crescent E, Saskatoon)
Featuring:
- Hereditary Chief Na’Moks Na’Moks is a Hereditary Chief of We’tsuwet’en. RBC is a financier of the Coastal Gaslink pipeline crossing We’tsuwet’en land.
- Grand Chief Stewart Phillip Chief Phillip represents the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) who has filed a resolution calling on RBC to implement Free Prior Informed Consent in their financing decisions.
- Tara Houska Tara is a tribal attorney, land defender, environmental and Indigenous rights advocate, and founder of the Giniw Collective, an Indigenous women, two-spirit-led frontline resistance to defend the sacred and live in balance
- Roishetta Ozane, the Executive Director of The Vessel Project and The Gulf Fossil Finance Coordinator for Texas Campaign for The Environment who will speak to RBC’s financing of LNG in the Gulf of Mexico.
- Jesse Cardinal, the Executive Director of Keepers of the Water, a group of First Nations, Métis, Inuit, environmental groups, concerned citizens, and communities working together for the protection of water, air, land, and all living things within the Arctic Ocean Drainage Basin. She is from the Kikino Métis Settlement, where she grew up.
- Moderated by Erica Violet Lee Erica is a poet and Native political theorist, born and raised in Saskatoon’s inner city.
April 5 – RBC AGM in Saskatoon
11 AM CET
Calling all hand drummers, dancers, & allies! You’re invited to a rally and round dance for climate justice and Indigenous sovereignty at 11 am (CST). Meet us at the Vimy Memorial Bandstand (https://goo.gl/maps/DhMrrVN5ZwJ9YgSj6). Indigenous Land & Water Protectors, including Wet’suwet’en Hereditary Chiefs, are coming to Saskatoon to attend RBC’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) at the same time as the rally. Haudenosaunee, Mi’kma’ki, Northern Alberta Nehiyaw, and Denesuline delegates will be there as well. Let’s welcome and support these visitors to treaty six, the traditional territory of the Nehiyawak, Assinaboine, Stoney, Saulteau, and Dakota, and the homeland of the Metis!
Past Events:
March 9:
Webinar: Canada’s big five banks are funding climate chaos and violations of Indigenous rights. Join this webinar and info-session to move your money for climate justice! Register here.
March 19:
Webinar: Join Wet’suwet’en Land Defenders to learn directly from them about their home and culture, and what we’re all fighting to defend. Register here.
April 1: #FossilFoolsDay – day of action across the country.
The RBC AGM will feature shareholder resolutions from allies in the movement, including:
- Resolution calling on RBC to adopt science-based, absolute climate targets from the New York City pension
- Resolution calling for an end to the financing of fossil fuel expansion by Stand
- Resolution calling for RBC to revise its Human Rights Position Statement to reflect that in taking action to mitigate adverse human rights impacts directly linked to its business relationships with clients (as outlined in the UNGPs), RBC will inform itself as to whether and how clients have operationalized FPIC of Indigenous peoples affected by such business relationships, by the Union of British Columbia Indian Chiefs (UBCIC) and BCGEU
